3D Printing

Definition

3D printing (additive manufacturing) is the fabrication technology that builds objects by depositing material layer by layer, whose design significance — in Clare Olsen's chapter — is an unusual asymmetry of limits: geometric freedom at a cost wall. "Aside from scale, 3D printers have the fewest limitations on the types of forms that can be produced. As an additive process, printing machines are superbly capable of manufacturing fantastically intricate objects, yet there have been few examples of building-scale use of 3D prints, due to the expense of printing standard materials like plastics, metals, and powders, which can cost upwards of US$75 per pound, and the more durable, the more costly. This circumstance renders 3D printing largely unaffordable for interior construction."

The concept's interior-architectural stake is scale and ornament: "3D printing holds tremendous potential for interior architecture, where a renewed interest in ornament and tactility can be manufactured at an approachable scale" — the additive machine's buildable area ("smaller than one cubic foot") produces parts at exactly furniture-and-component scale, making the technology interior architecture's natural instrument rather than architecture's (see digital-fabrication for the CNC-scale thesis).

Two further registers complete the concept:

The material hack (Emerging Objects). Recognizing the cost-prohibitive limits, Ron Rael and Virginia San Fratello — co-founders of Rael San Fratello — "created an offshoot of their Oakland-based practice called Emerging Objects, defined as a 'MAKE-tank' focused on design and fabrication research through 3D printing. By hacking additive printing machines, they developed the wizardry to print materials formerly unimaginable within the realm of building construction. Through years of playful experimentation and testing, the team developed techniques and formulas to print materials such as salt, sand, and sawdust." The flagship material: prints "made of a combination of salt harvested from the San Francisco Bay and glue, a 'salty glue', which makes an ideal 3D printing material; one that is strong, waterproof, lightweight, translucent, and inexpensive" — "Although one might associate salt with impermanence, the prints" are durable. "By mining sustainable materials, and sometimes by-products of other manufacturing processes, Emerging Objects innovates building modules that are highly intricate, eco-conscious, and much more affordable than standard rapid prototyping materials" (see sustainability).

The customization thesis. San Fratello — who teaches interior architecture — ties the technology to architecture's oldest value against standardization: "I think architecture is still about customization and uniqueness. Architecture still responds to unique sites and contexts, and 3D printing actually facilitates the role of customization in architecture, and the number of issues we can respond to as designers." The technology does not replace site-responsiveness; it scales it (see mass-customization).

The built proof (Saltygloo). Exhibited at the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco, the Saltygloo "demonstrated the performance of the salt modules at the scale of a room. The translucent shell, embedded with texture and tiny apertures, created a soft disco effect and ephemeral atmosphere." The lesson Olsen draws: "Emerging Objects has demonstrated that questioning the limits of machines can enable new potentialities for interior design and spatial experiences" (see technological-limits).

Key Thinkers

• olsen-clare — the concept's analyst: the cost wall ($75/lb), the interior-scale dividend, and the ornament/tactility promise.
• Ron Rael & Virginia San Fratello (Emerging Objects) — the machine-hackers: the "MAKE-tank," the salty glue, the Saltygloo, and the customization thesis (not yet paged — see log).
• Henry van de Velde — the historical reference San Fratello names as an influence on Emerging Objects' work: "the desire to integrate ornament into interior environments" (not yet paged — see log).

Related Concepts

• Digital Fabrication — the technology family 3D printing belongs to; its additive ("suberbly capable of manufacturing fantastically intricate objects") rather than subtractive arm.
• Technological Limits — the interrogative frame: the printer's cost wall is a limit to be questioned rather than accepted; hacking the machine is the tactic.
• Mass Customization — the customization thesis: printing "facilitates the role of customization" against standardization.
• Sustainability — the materials register: SF Bay salt, sand, and sawdust — sustainable feedstock and manufacturing by-products as print material.
• Architectural Ornament — the stylistic stake: "a renewed interest in ornament and tactility can be manufactured at an approachable scale"; van de Velde's ornament-integration lineage via San Fratello.
• Atmosphere — the Saltygloo's effect: "a soft disco effect and ephemeral atmosphere" from a translucent, textured, apertured shell.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• On technological limits (Olsen 2018) — the concept's source: the cost analysis, the Emerging Objects hack (salt/sand/sawdust, salty glue), the Saltygloo at room scale, San Fratello's customization thesis, and the ornament/tactility promise.
• Sensorial interior landscapes (Garófalo-Khan 2018) — the adjacent built case: Rael San Fratello's SOL Grotto as a "performative boundary" presenting "a mediated experience of water, coolness, and light" — the same practice's non-printed register (see artificial-grotto, performative-ornament).
• Touch, Taste, Smell (Brown 2018) — the accessibility register, and the technology's interpretive turn: Touching the Prado (Museo del Prado, Madrid, 2015) "employed the latest three-dimensional printing technology in collaboration with experts in visual impairment to render famous works of art accessible to those who could not see them" — six genres of the permanent collection printed as touchable reliefs, with braille didactics and audio guides, aiming at "bringing a heightened degree of artistic-aesthetic creative enjoyment" for blind and partially sighted visitors. Here printing's promise is not ornament at room scale but representation converted to touch: the two-dimensional masterpiece re-materialized so the hand can read what the eye cannot. See multisensory-museum.
• source-notes/brownell-2018-living-rooms-hypernaturalization

Open Questions

• Is hacking the machine (printing salt in a plastics printer) a generalizable tactic for interrogating machine limits — or does each hack remain a bespoke workaround whose own limits (the glue dependency, the durability question) are merely displaced?
• "One might associate salt with impermanence" — the chapter answers with the salty glue's strength, but the Saltygloo remains an exhibition shell: has any 3D-printed interior element yet survived occupancy, maintenance, and code?
• The customization thesis claims printing serves "unique sites and contexts" — but the modules are inherently modular: is room-scale printing customization or a new standardization of the intricate?
• The cost wall was measured in 2008–2013 dollars (Olsen's sources): has additive manufacturing's cost curve yet crossed the threshold where "ornament and tactility… manufactured at an approachable scale" becomes ordinary interior construction rather than research promise?