This captioned movie shows workers unfolding a flat-pack MADI – a modular, earthquake-resistant house that the manufacturer claims can be constructed within six hours.
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New York design brand Pelle is launching a set of small pendants and sconces, which are encased by triangular metal frame that diffuses light in different directions, at the Interior Design Show in Toronto this week.
Pelle‘s Tripp Mini lighting is being presented at IDS Toronto as an update to its Tripp sconce, pendant and table lamp series.
The triangular framework devised by the studio to reflect light in multiple ways is the same as found in the collection from 2014. But the new additions are much smaller, to make them useable in a wider variety of spaces.
“We were interested in manipulating light within a more sculptural form,” studio founders Jean and Oliver Pelle told Dezeen.
“The light softens the form when it gradually emanates across the three fins that form the body of the Tripps,” they continued. “The light radiates onto the floor and wall in soft patterns stemming from the triangular geometry of the fins.”
Both the updated pendant and sconce feature metal panels running along the three longer edges of a six-sided base, slightly extending at one side. Gaps are left along the shorter edges so that light reflecting of the metalwork can filter out.
The sconce then attaches to the wall via a circular base, while the pendant light hangs from a cylindrical support.
All the metal pieces are welded together to form the hard geometric outline and the join is left exposed, although the studio hopes that the light reads as coherent.
“Even though they are quite small, we think they are monolithic at the same time,” said the pair.
“The minimal lines of the Tripps leave no place to hide any connections or traces of the making process. All welds are in sight, while they are supposed to be not noticeable.”
Two new materials – weathered steel and stainless steel – have also been introduced to the series, accompanying the brushed-brass in the existing Tripp range.
While the stainless steel has a cleaner finish, the designers chose the pre-rusted steel to emulate industrial-style buildings. They experimented with applying a variety of acids to the surface before settling on one that achieved the desired finish and texture.
“Once we found something that worked in terms of colour and effect, we tested how to deliver the acid from submersion, to brushing on, to spraying to dabbing,” they said. “In the end it took a bit of everything, and some patience to let the acid do its work.”
Jean and Oliver met while studying architecture at Yale in the early 2000s before co-founding Pelle in 2011.
In 2016, the pair relocated their showroom, workshop and offices from Brooklyn’s Red Hook to a self-designed space in Manhattan’s Flatiron District.
Pelle’s other projects include a range of modular, stick-style lighting that can be configured into simple or complex shapes.
IDS Toronto is taking place at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre from 18 to 12 January 2018.
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À droite, Paris. À gauche, son alter-ego chinois, Tianducheng. Si l’une est une copie de l’autre, force est de constater que la ressemblance est frappante, surtout au vu des photographies cadrées au millimètre de François Prost. Une incertitude apparait alors : faut-il être impressionné, ou effrayé ?
Growing up in the wintry American northeast, the joy of no-school Snow Days was offset by the arduous task of shoveling under adult directive. But now parents can rob their children of this character-building exercise by introducing a remote-controlled, 3D-printed miniature snowblower into the household, allowing their kids to stay inside and spend more time cyberbullying their classmates.
Designed by Ryan Spyker, this Spyker KAT is small but pretty damn impressive. Here a guy is putting it through its paces in four inches of snow, and -18 Celsius (about 0 Fahrenheit) temperatures:
The knock on kids vis-à-vis electronics these days is that they spend all of their time staring into a glass rectangle. Whether they’re playing Candy Crush or Call of Duty, they’re not here in the real world and engaged with physical things (XBox controllers don’t count).
Nintendo’s forthcoming Labo system looks to be a much better prospect. By combining their Switch console with connected cardboard creations that the kids assemble themselves, they’ve managed to tie the digital to the physical. Which is to say, the user is actually, in the name of play, building and then manipulating a physical object in order to produce a result. That is hopefully the “gateway drug,” for lack of a better term, that may lead them into creating objects of their own design.
Have a look at the breadth of the system:
The first kits will be released this April. And for parents who live in San Francisco or New York City, you can sign your kids up for an earlier hands-on event here.
One of the most challenging tasks facing designers and engineers new to 3D printing is having to navigate through the vast number of 3D printing processes and materials to find the solution that is best for their application.
In this article, we present several easy-to-use tools to help you select the right 3D printing process for your application.
3D printing (or Additive Manufacturing) is an umbrella term that encompasses multiple processes The ISO/ASTM 52900 Standard was created in 2015 to standardize all terminology and classify each of the different methods of 3D printing. A total of seven process categories were established.
Each of these and the associated process description are presented in the following table:
Classification of the 3D printing technologies. A high-res poster with all 3D printing process is available here for free download. Of these technologies, Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) and Stereolithography (SLA) are the most easily accessible and cost-competitive options, as both industrial and desktop systems are widely available.
For high-end polymer applications, Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) and Material Jetting (MJ) are popular options, while SLM and DMLS or Binder Jetting can produce 3D printed metal parts.
With all these options, how can a designer decide which process is best for an application?
“With 3D printing, it is particularly important to determine early in the selection process whether the main design criteria are based on functional requirements or visual appearance. This greatly simplifies the selection process.”
To further simplify things and make the information in this article actionable, some high-level generalizations are introduced as useful starting points for the decision making process:
— Functional polymer parts: compare FDM vs. SLS (thermoplastics). SLS parts have superior physical properties, but FDM is more cost-effective. For parts with highly complex geometry, SLS is generally the only option.
— Visual polymer parts: For parts where aesthetics are important, we suggest to compare SLA vs. Material Jetting (thermoset). They both can produce parts with injection-mold like appearance, but Material Jetting has the upper hand in terms of surface finish and dimensional accuracy, but at a significantly higher price point.
—Metal parts: compare Binder Jetting vs. DMLS/SLM (metal powders). DMLS/SLM parts have excellent mechanical properties and dimensional accuracy, while Binder Jetting can be up to 10x cheaper and is usually the only option for producing large metal parts.
Note: Use the above guidelines as a starting point, there are many situations in which these generalized rules do not apply. For example, SLA or Material Jetting can produce functional parts from speciality materials (such as low-run injection molds and hearing aids). Also, low-cost visual prototyping can be often be done using FDM, for example.
If functionality is the main goal, the flowchart below can help you identify the most suitable 3D printing process based on your main requirement:
When designing a part or prototype that will fit with other components, such as enclosures, it is important to define the necessary level of tolerance. Generally, selecting a process with higher dimensional accuracy and high detail will increase the cost.
An alternative to selecting a process with higher dimensional accuracy is to finish features with critical dimensions after 3D printing (for example by drilling holes or tapping threads).
Overall part strength depends on different mechanical and physical properties. To simplify the selection, the material Tensile Strength can be used as guidance.
When high strength and stiffness are required, metal 3D printing or FDM printing reinforced with continuous carbon fibers are the best solutions.
Engineering 3D printing materials, like ULTEM, are available with special properties, such as flame retardant and chemical or heat resistant, as well as biocompatible or food-safe certified materials.
Flexibility can be defined as either a high elongation at break (flexibility), where common thermoplastics such as TPU are available in SLS and FDM, or as low hardness, where materials with a rubber-like feel are available for SLA and Material Jetting.
When visual appearance is the main concern, then the 3D printing process selection can be simplified using the flowchart below:
Both SLA and Material Jetting can produce parts with smooth, injection-mold-like surface finish.
The main difference between the two processes (apart from the cost) is that support in Material Jetting is soluble, while in SLA the support structures to be removed manually after printing, leaving small marks on the surface that need to be post processed (sanded or polished).
Material Jetting can produce fully transparent parts with a glass-like appearance, while SLA parts are printed semi-transparent and can be post processed to be almost 100% optically clear.
Parts with special texture, such as a wood-like or metal-like finish, can be printed using woodfill or metalfill FDM filaments.
Rubber-like parts are soft (shore hardness < 70A) and can bend and compress, but lack the performance of true rubber.
Material Jetting and Binder Jetting are the only 3D printing processes that currently offer full-color printing capabilities.
Material Jetting generally is the preferred process, as it offers materials with better physical properties. Multi-color 3D selfies (figurines) are often printed using Binder Jetting, as it is cheaper.
The following table can be used for reference to compare between the different 3D printing technologies:
Reference table, summarizing the capabilities and common applications of each 3D printing technology. A high-res infographic with design guidelines for all 3D printing processes is available here for free download.The guidelines and tables of this article should already give you a basic understanding and reference for choosing between the different 3D printing processes.
For those that want to learn more, The 3D Printing Handbook helps you master all the key aspects of 3D printing. It is designed to read unlike any other engineering book, full of easy-to-understand diagrams and inspiring visuals and will help you find the right 3D printing process for all of your designs.
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3D Hubs is the world‘s largest network of manufacturing services. With production facilities connected in over 140 countries, the 3D Hubs online platform helps you find the fastest and most price competitive manufacturing solution near you. Founded in 2013, the network has since produced more than 1,000,000 parts locally, making it the global leader in distributed manufacturing.
Once again, French jewelry and watch brand Van Cleef & Arpels demonstrates that there’s a poetry to the stars. Among their latest pieces unveiled during SIHH (the prestigious Geneva-based watch trade sho) a series of poetic astronomy timepieces capture……
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Researchers from the National University of Singapore have created a bevy of robotic swans that test the quality of drinking water in Singapore‘s reservoirs.
The robotic birds, collectively named NUSwan, autonomously swim across the water’s surface using underbody propellers.
Fitted with a number of sensors, they are designed to monitor the quality of freshwater lakes and reservoirs – such as levels of dissolved oxygen or chlorophyll – while blending in with the natural environment.
The team, made up of researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS), believe the system offers a cheaper and less complex alternative to water-checking methods currently used.
“Freshwater reservoirs are complex environments that are highly dynamic over time and space. The water quality of the reservoir can be affected by factors such as increasing urbanisation, recreation and other human activities in the catchments,” said the researchers behind the project.
“At present, water quality monitoring is typically conducted using fixed online stations which provide limited coverage, by taking a boat to fixed locations to collect grab samples, or by taking manual in-situ measurements, which are tedious and time-consuming,” they added.
As the swans float on the water, wireless technology is used to stream real-time data results to a command centre. The actions of the swans can then be remotely altered by operators based on this data.
Additional sensors and actuators can be also added when necessary to increase the swans’ monitoring abilities.
“By combining a miniature water grabber and in-situ water parameter probes in the NUSwan, operation staff or researchers can instantaneously decide to collect water samples for detailed laboratory analysis if the in-situ measurements suggest some irregularity,” explained the team.
“This may be useful for water authorities to understand the relationship between the micro-ecosystem and water quality,” they added.
The NUSwan is also designed to be utilised alongside other monitoring systems – such as NUS’ underwater manta ray robot, which is used for underwater surveillance.
According to the researchers, the two robots complement each other in their operations, providing enhanced studies of both above and below the reservoir surface to better understand the environment as a whole.
Robots are increasingly being utilised in everyday life to monitor and improve our environments.
According to Arjen Bangma, who curated the Robotanica exhibition in held at Dutch Design Week last November, robotic creatures could be released into the wild to help restore damaged ecosystems, taking the place of extinct species.
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Neave Brown‘s extraordinary legacy reflects a progressive social agenda that is lacking in many of today’s architects, says Catherine Slessor.
The architectural highlight of 2017, without doubt, was Neave Brown’s valedictory lecture in the unlikely confines of London’s Hackney Empire. As he came on stage, to rapturous applause, he gave a little shimmy to the crowd, as if he couldn’t quite believe this was all for him. At the end of an impassioned discourse, he received a standing ovation. Most of the audience knew it would be his last public appearance, as he was enduring the final stages of the cancer that killed him on 9 January, aged 88.
Having done the decent thing of awarding him the 2018 Royal Gold Medal, the RIBA did another decent thing by bringing its gonging ceremony forward, as one of the award’s technical stipulations is that there must be a living recipient to receive it. Duly garlanded and chiselled into the marble portals of Portland Place, Neave Brown is now among architecture’s immortals.
Some despicable professional contrarians have suggested that the prospect of imminent demise helped swing the Gold Medal his way. But in truth, he required no sympathy vote, as his extraordinary life and work speak for themselves. And with a powerful and enduring eloquence, as all his British buildings have been listed as modernist exemplars.
Brown’s trajectory was unorthodox and rich with incident
Brown’s trajectory was unorthodox and rich with incident. Eschewing the usual arc of disappointment that characterises most architectural careers – the early promise, the flowering, the plateauing, and finally, the irrelevance – Brown baled out after the flowering. Having built a handful of pioneering housing projects in Camden, he then gave up architectural practice in the UK, following a lengthy public enquiry into the alleged shortcomings of Alexandra Road (pictured). He was exonerated, but knew that mud would stick.
Yet though his oeuvre is small, it is intensely and beautifully considered. Most admirably, it reflects a consistent commitment to the idea of making decent social housing, thrown into hideously stark relief by last summer’s Grenfell Tower fire. With the comprehensive dismantling of affordable housing provision, initially through the Thatcherite right-to-buy policy of the late 1970s, the notion of housing as a social good for which the state is responsible has long been abandoned. Housing is now seen as a commodity, and cities, especially London, are being eviscerated and stratified by wealth, class and race.
“We cannot do social housing or housing for low-income people, urban housing, we cannot do it as private enterprise. It simply can’t be done,” Brown told Dezeen in an interview in October 2017.
“We have to find a way of restarting housing programmes,” he added. “We have to totally redefine standards, finances, occupation, land use, acquisition and so forth.”
Alexandra Road’s intricate, ziggurat profile comprehensively redefined the concept of the London terrace
Brown’s quest to devise new low-density housing models began when he left the AA. In 1963, he limbered up with a reconceptualisation of a traditional terrace in Winscombe Street in Dartmouth Park; five houses joined together, each with a tight, corkscrew stair linking their three storeys. In a gently radical move, children’s bedrooms were placed on the ground floor, adults at the top, sandwiching a living space resembling the promenade deck of an ocean liner in between. A further external spiral stair swerved down from the deck into shared gardens to cultivate communality.
Forms were laconic and repetitive, materiality tough and sections complex, connoting architecture as an armature for inhabitation and sociability. It presaged the shape of things to come, creating frameworks in an anonymous way around semi-private or public space, like Georgian and Victorian templates for speculative housing.
“Instead of violating the environment with towers and slab blocks surrounded by undefined space, we wanted to do housing that acknowledged our traditions and made a piece of city,” said Brown in an interview with The Guardian. “People’s houses, front doors and gardens are part of the structure of the environment for everybody. It means you can mix classes and incomes, old and young all together in a continuous environment, where everybody gains by contact with everybody.”
Drawn into the orbit of Camden borough architect Sidney Cook, Brown completed two further housing schemes at Fleet Road in 1977 and Alexandra Road a year later. The former is a modern hanging gardens, the latter a muscular curve of stepped concrete bulwarking a railway line in Swiss Cottage. Displaying an astonishing formal and social bravura, its intricate, ziggurat profile comprehensively redefined the concept of the London terrace. But squabbles over costs and delays soured its completion, impelling Brown to seek a more receptive milieu in the Netherlands. Here, he designed large-scale, mixed-use schemes that strove to reframe the texture and experience of the city, echoing the precepts of his early London projects.
Brown stood with dignity outside this hubris, quietly restating by thought and deed what it really meant to be an architect
At 73, he quit architecture altogether to study fine art, seemingly content to merge into late career anonymity. But over time, the quality and invention of his buildings prevailed, feted by new generations of scholars, students and supporters. His Camden trio became required viewing, especially the futuristic fantasia of Alexandra Road, regularly co-opted into film and video shoots. Latterly, digital dissemination kept the flame burning and invariably, he piqued the interest of the new brutalist obsessives, though his take on it was much less hardcore than some might suppose.
Last year’s publication of the insightful Cook’s Camden by Mark Swenarton provided a formal record of his accomplishments and an informal record of how far architects have fallen in the modern era. From helping to drive and implement a progressive social agenda, as its forebears once did, the profession is now hopelessly marginalised, happy to provide the glitter on any old dungheap. Alert and articulate to the end, Brown stood with dignity outside this hubris, quietly restating by thought and deed what it really meant to be an architect.
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With the start of the new year, architecture studios all over London are recruiting for talented Part-I and Part-II graduates. Here are six of the best opportunities available via Dezeen Jobs, including Heatherwick Studio, John McAslan + Partners and Allies + Morrison.
Part-II qualified designers/architects at Heatherwick Studio
Thomas Heatherwick’s studio is currently working on a range of architectural commissions including the overhaul of London’s Olympia exhibition centre and a pair of towers in New York. The firm is currently advertising for Part-II architects and designers, to work on a mix of commercial, residential and cultural projects.
Find out more about this job ›
Part-II architectural assistants at Allies + Morrison
Allies and Morrison unveiled a huge masterplan at the end of last year, which will see the firm transform a desert valley into a 624-hectare city over the next 30 years. The company is currently seeking a number of talented architects and urban designers.
Find out more about this job ›
Part-I/II architectural assistants at Ron Arad Architects
Ron Arad‘s studio is increasingly working on architecture projects – and recently teamed up with British architect David Adjaye on the competition-winning design for the UK’s National Holocaust Memorial. The team is now looking to grow, and is advertising for Part-I and Part-II assistants with good drawing and modelling skills.
Find out more about this job ›
Part-I/II architectural assistant at Tate Harmer
Tate Harmer is looking for a Part-I or Part-II architect to join its growing practice, based in London’s Dalston. Among the studio’s most prolific projects is the renovation of a subterranean shaft created by 19th-century engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, to create an underground performance venue.
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Part-I/II architectural assistants at John McAslan + Partners
John McAslan + Partners is looking for Part-I and Part-II architects with excellent design, technical and organisational skills. The firm’s current projects include the redesign of Britain’s largest mosque, which was damaged by a fire in 2015.
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Part-II architectural assistant at Claridge Architects
There is an opportunity for a Part-II architectural assistant to join Claridge Architects at its office based in Queens Park, London. The studio’s past projects include a blackened timber pavilion designed to host an exhibition celebrating weeds.
Find out more about this job ›
See all the latest architecture and design roles on Dezeen Jobs ›
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