Core77 2013 Year in Review: Digital Fabrication, Part 4 – Research & Education
Posted in: Digital Fabrication
Core77 2013 Year in Review: Top Ten Posts · Furniture, Pt. 1 · Furniture, Pt. 2
Digital Fabrication, Pt. 1 · Digital Fabrication, Pt. 2 · Digital Fabrication, Pt. 3 · Digital Fabrication, Pt. 4
Insights from the Core77 Questionnaire · Maker Culture: The Good, the Bad and the Future · Food & Drink
Materials, Pt. 1: Wood
When it comes to boundary-pushing research, MIT Media Lab is no slouch. This year their Mediated Matter Group stunned with their Silk Pavilion, which harnessed architecture, design and biomimicry with digital fabrication in an unusual way: The two-part structure was begun using CNC-deposited silk fibers laid out by an algorithm, then actual silkworms themselves were used to fill in the gaps with their own material, behaving as “biological printers.”
Across MIT’s campus, meanwhile, Skylar Tibbits and his Self-Assembly Lab are themselves adding a new dimension to 3D printing: Time. Tibbits and his team’s research into how 3D-printed objects can be induced into changing their form over time has yielded what they’re calling 4D printing. One of their goals, as the organization’s name suggests, will be to create self-assembling objects and structures.
Jake Evill isn’t from MIT, but rather Victoria University of Wellington, and the freshly-minted ID grad has been experimenting with 3D-Printed Exoskeletal Casts. Protective, lightweight, breathable, and fully customizable to the user, Evill’s concept makes itchy plaster casts look as primitive as leeching people for blood.
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