Abstract
In the era when the construction industry urges a paradigm shift towards more sustainable and efficient building solutions, the paper describes the design scenarios opened by 3D printed reusable formworks in the production of bespoke building scale concrete elements as a solution to the formal and technical limitations of the conventional manufacturing processes. Combining the latest advances in computational design and Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) 3D printing technology, the paper presents and discusses an exploration and assessment of the higher design freedom given by the use of Additive Formwork for architecture through an experimental setup, where the design and fabrication of a series of morphologically diverse concrete panels were carried out. As a method of assessing the geometric freedom enabled by the employed fabrication technology, it is presented as an explorative design strategy that translates into multiple outputs with distinct and complementary features within the manufacturing process's characteristics high-precision control over section, curvature, inclination and detailing. Through an analysis of the digital models’ geometric features and an assessment of the precision of the manufactured artefacts, the results prove that combining FDM 3D Printing and concrete is a viable fabrication technique for bespoke elements, opening to unexplored aesthetics and design solutions that can potentially improve structural and material efficiency of concrete construction.
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Acknowledgements
This work was carried out at the CREATE Lab at the University of Southern Denmark—Section for Civil and Architectural Engineering. The authors wish to thank David W. Jokszies for the assistance, Hi-Con for in-kind support of concrete material and Ass. Prof. Knud Bjørnholt for the 3D Scanning at the SDU Prototyping Lab.
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Naboni, R., Breseghello, L. (2022). Additive Formwork: Examining Design, Fabrication Space and Resolution for Bespoke Concrete Elements. In: Altan, H., et al. Advances in Architecture, Engineering and Technology . Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11232-4_22
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