Archinect - News

MIT researchers develop rapid 3D printing process with liquid metal

2024-01-30T12:40:00-05:00

News is circulating about a novel method for 3D printing liquid metals that was developed by researchers working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Self-Assembly Lab.

The invention can print furniture-sized components using molten aluminum and a ceramic nozzle graphite printer. They say their discovery works without re-melting the recycled materials, as is the case with many current technologies. It resembles a small furnace into which book-sized blocks of the material are fed. The technique, called liquid metal printing (LMP), creates material that is durable enough to withstand CNC milling and other steps in the post-design delivery process.

Image credit: MIT Self-Assembly Lab

The hope now is to refine the technique to allow for more consistent and higher-resolution prints. Such rapid and deployable solutions could become an attractive choice for architectural designers looking to scale up development and building projects in the future.

Image credit: MIT Self-Asse...

Is a future filled with levitating buildings on the horizon?

2019-11-18T15:10:00-05:00

During Dubai Design Week, architect and professor Dr. Georges Kachaamy presented an eye catching project that questions architecture's need for the ground. Through his project, "Rising Oases," Kachaamy proposes a future where individual buildings are no longer tied to their "daily restraints," including the need to be firmly anchored to the earth.

According to the Dubai Design Week website, "The structure is suspended in the air using breakthrough technology, providing visitors with an outlet to disconnect from the city." Part of an ongoing research project that has been in the works over the past decade, according to a recent report from CNN, Kachammy's project, which uses magnetic levitation technologies to levitate scale models above their bases, stunned the design week attendees.

Rendering of one of Kachaamy's levitating buildings. Courtesy of Georges Kachaamy.

Some might view his proposal as implausible, but according to Kieron Monks of CNN, Kachammy is prepared to win over th...

Editor's Picks #442

2016-03-03T13:23:00-05:00

ICYMI Will Galloway penned a reflection on a workshop he instigated at Keio University, with members of Assemble, Paloma Strelitz and James Binning (pre Turner Prize). The studio ended with students building a very rough and very temporary Onsen. The three later discussed, the history of Assemble, architecture’s "long history of collective action" and "amazingly entrepreneurial architectural practices".

Donna Sink loved their take on radicalism "as just being a reasonable way to practice. They believe they're not radical at all. I'm onboard with removing the word ‘non-traditional’ from the descriptor ‘non-traditional practice’ when it comes to architecture of this kind. It's just practice, which is a broad world."

Plus, Amelia Taylor-Hochberg published an interview with Steven Holl and Kevin Lippert (founder of Princeton Architectural Press) about Pamphlet Architecture. rprt frm th heartland praised Pamphlet as "chewy and lovely".

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Over at Architect Magazine Blaine Brownell, AIA, e...

Editor's Picks #383

2014-09-05T00:39:00-04:00

Sean Smith published the first in a series of articles in which "three architects (two designers and one licensed architect) discuss their transition from student to professional, their changed perceptions of the career and the challenges and joys of their current work".

The interview with Elizabeth Christoforetti looks back at her time with DEGW, her time at Harvard's Graduate School of Design and her work at Utile, where she tackles everything from "front-end design work" to "entrepreneurially-oriented master planning".

After reading this interview and others like it, Chris Teeter is convinced studio education "of the architect should not be the dominant method for training an architect...somehow salary means working like studio and the only reason we work so long when we start is we learned very little on how to be an architect and know even less on how to offer additional non traditional input on projects that get sourced out to construction managers, lawyers, specialists, etc......

FLATCUT-ACADIA Digital Fabrication Winners Announced

2011-07-18T14:48:29-04:00

The Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA), in collaboration with Brooklyn-based fabrication house FLATCUT_ have announced winners of this year’s ACADIA 2011 Design + Fabrication Competition.