Latest news with #3Dprinting
Forbes
2 days ago
- Forbes
World's Tallest 3D-Printed Building Towers Over Tiny Swiss Town
In a quaint village nestled high in the Swiss alps, an enigmatic domed building towers above the sloped rooftops. The structure is notable not only for its height, but for how it was constructed. Tor Alva, or White Tower, is believed to be the tallest 3D-printed building in the world. Located in the tiny town of Mulegns, Tor Alva stands more than 98 feet tall, including its base, and spans 24 to 30 feet in diameter, depending on the spot. At its core are bone-white columns of varying widths and heights, 3D-printed by a giant, nozzle-wielding robot in thin, precise layers of specialized load-bearing concrete. In another innovation, a second robot inserted steel reinforcement between layers to make the columns fully structural. As visitors ascend the internal spiral staircase that connects the tower's four floors, they'll notice that each of the branching columns that wrap around atmospheric open-air rooms feature intricate geometric patterns. The shapes differ from column to column, but unite to form a cohesive visual whole. 'The tower feels at once solid and transparent,' Michael Hansmeyer, one of Tor Alva's architects, said in an interview. 'It shelters, but never encloses.' Visitors enter the tower through a dark, historic carriage depot. 'As they climb the tower, the columns evolve from robust and grounded columns at the base to thin, airy, intertwined columns at the top,' said Hansmeyer, also a programmer who explores the use of algorithms to generate and fabricate architectural forms. Construction on Tora Alva began in February of 2024 and it opened last month as a space that combines architecture, structural engineering and culture. A cupola theater at the top has a central stage and 32 seats — it will serve as a performance space for concerts, art installations, readings and theater and dance performances against mountain panoramas. Mulegns thrived in the 19th century as a hub for artisans — confectioners, master builders and stucco plasterers who exported their skills to the world. Now, it has less than 15 residents. 'By fostering architectural tourism and laying the foundation for renewed prosperity in the high alpine valley, Tor Alva breathes new life into a historic community while setting a global standard for sustainable, culturally vibrant development,' say its creators, which include the Nova Fundaziun Origen and ETH Zurich, a university that focuses on science, technology, engineering and math. The craftsmanship of the new structure, the creators add, recalls the artistry of Baroque builders in the region where Mulegns is located on the Julier Pass. Indeed, the tower has the theatrical, decorative style characteristic of Baroque edifices, but with a technical backstory and otherwordly vibe that place it firmly in the 21st century. 'Tor Alva can be described as a futuristic relic, a structure that appears both ancient and avant-garde,' Hansmeyer said. 'Its flowing, organic forms, enabled by 3D printing, evoke natural associations, yet the precision of the thousands of printed concrete layers reveals a distinctly modern, algorithmic origin.' Advocates of 3D-printed construction tout the method as a way to build quickly while minimizing environmental impact and reducing waste. The robot that extruded concrete for Tor Alva, for example, applies the substance only where needed, resulting in hollow columns that significantly reduce material consumption. Recent years have seen the rise of 3D-printed homes, and even an entire neighborhood in Texas, aimed at easing the affordable housing shortage. Following the devastating L.A. wildfires in January, the technique has gained ground in the area as it significantly speeds up the rebuilding process for displaced residents. Walls constructed using concrete 3D printing can be built in just days. But the technique also holds design promise. 'It will allow us to build a richer, more expressive architecture,' Hansmeyer said, 'as the additive process liberates designers from the constraints of traditional formwork, enabling complex, organic shapes and intricate details previously unachievable or cost-prohibitive.' It took about five months to generate Tor Alva's 124 3D-printed elements. Benjamin Dillenburger, a professor of digital building technologies at ETH Zurich, partnered with Hansmeyer on the design, and Uffer Group and Zindel United handled the construction, with help from engineering firm Conzett Bronzini Partner AG. Performances at the site's theater start in July, but visitors can already take daily tours, glimpsing technological ambition and architectural possibility in a remote, idyllic setting.
The Drive
3 days ago
- Automotive
- The Drive
If You Need a Car Part That Doesn't Exist, Talk to This Guy
The latest car news, reviews, and features. 3D printing democratizes manufacturing in ways that have real, positive implications for car enthusiasts. Need a little trim piece that's been discontinued since the '80s? 3D printing lets you remake one and allows you to make it better with your own tweaks. And the opportunities for creativity are endless. A few months ago, I started a thread with Ben Bishop, who has a little operation making custom parts and recreating unobtainable items for people's car projects. He shared some interesting insight on his process and how 3D printing is empowering some cool cottage-industry innovation. As a lover of creative car customization and small industrial enterprises in general (surely I'm not the only one), I thought it'd be fun to share the process Bishop goes through to design and create custom 3D parts through his U.K.-based outfit, BWB Designs. Over email, he answered my questions about his work and explained what his process is like, whether he's reverse-engineering a rare or no-longer-available part or creating something from scratch. Bishop has built things from small and practical, like this Mini vent gauge pod, to the large and unique, like this nose cone for a homemade Ariel Atom replica. BWB Designs If somebody already has a part they want replicated, 'then they can either post the part directly to me for replication, or they can scan the part themselves and send me the scans,' Bishop told me. 'If they post the part to me it allows me to either scan or measure the part for direct CAD modeling. I can then advise the client on design suggestions which may help to optimize the 3D printing process. For example, by increasing thickness in certain areas, adding features which improve the printability or implementing hardware like heat-sert threads to help the functionality as best as possible. Once we work through and come to a finalized design, we test print and fit the part. This process was used for the CR-X door inserts as well as the CR-X License plate light holder as well as many other small parts. 'If they plan on scanning the part, I ask for a set of check dimensions to ensure accuracy with the scans as best [as] possible. Whilst also checking dimensions on my model throughout the design process. After that, we can follow the same steps as previously mentioned to achieve an end product. This process was used with the Chevy C10 Dash AC Bezel.' A Chevy truck cluster bezel to scan (bottom right), digitally rendered (left), then 3D printed in replica (top right). BWB Designs Bishop explained to me that he's able to help people in different ways depending on the equipment the customer has on their end. If you can scan and print things at home, he can fine-tune the render to ensure the scanned image becomes a high-quality printable file. If you only have a scanner, he can optimize a design and print it for you. If you don't have anything, you can mail the part you want copied, and BWB will do the rest. Of course, sometimes you don't have an example part to start from. Bishop told me about how he recreates factory parts without a physical template, too. Reference photos, any known specs, specs of surrounding and adjacent parts, anything adjacent that can be scanned … a bit more imagination and time is required. 'This was the process used to create the CR-X recessed headlight shrouds, my client posted the OEM headlight for me to take mounting points off and gather a set of general dimensions. I then researched the rare option, gathering photos and information to produce the final product. I can use the images to obtain scales and proportions for the model, as well as getting a good idea on angles of certain features. Combining that with the set of dimensions from the OEM headlight, implementing the mounting points and also fitment for a standard light type allowed me to produce an end product which the client was very satisfied with!' Finding these headlight shrouds for a first-gen CRX in perfect condition would be nearly impossible, and convincing a big aftermarket parts factory to re-make them for a single customer is unlikely. This is where small outfits like Bishop's can shine. BWB Designs When it comes to completely custom stuff, Bishop told me he works with that too. When there's no part to replicate, he told me that he can make things from scratch using broad dimensions and mounting points. He's done everything from gauge pods to intake pipes to whole aero kits. 'With the use of modern technology, we can create pretty much anything with a phone, tape measure, and some imagination,' Bishop explained. 'Using phones to scan isn't always the most accurate or high-quality process, but with some reworking and optimizations on my end in combination with check dimensions, we can get to a point where the scan is good enough to work off. The Audi 4M Q7 intake was made with a phone scan. As well as a couple [of] current projects, which are currently underway, using phone scans on a larger scale to build a front splitter as well as an entire body kit.' Bishop custom-made this Audi intake pipe in a larger-than-stock diameter and without its factory baffle restrictor. If you're interested in doing something like this for your own car, just remember, there's more to engine tuning than more air means more power. Any mod to a vehicle's intake system should be paired with a custom computer tune optimized on a dyno. BWB Designs My favorite innovation of Bishop's is this wild AW11 MR2 cooling vent system. As Bishop posted on his website [sic] : 'Using 3D Scans, we worked to fit in the ducts around the existing constraints of the engine bay. A goal was to maintain the OEM Sunroof storage, as well as various other obstacles to work around. 'The end product was printed in ASA-CF, then skinned with carbon fiber for an aesthetically pleasing and high-performance finish. The firewall through-mounts and hood vent were SLS Printed in PA-12 nylon for a strong and high-quality product.' This air piping even keeps the OEM sunroof storage functionality in place. BWB Designs So far, Bishop's business has just been directly working with individuals to make their small-batch parts production dreams come true. But some of his creations have ended up being replicated in slightly bigger batches. If you're the kind of person who would go through the trouble of getting a CR-X headlight shroud custom-made, you probably know other CR-X dorks who might also want such a piece. 'I encourage all of my clients to market the products I design for them, where applicable, even if they hadn't planned on doing so,' said Bishop. 'A lot of the time, being connected with their own communities allows them to sell at least a few of the parts to cover my costs of design. It works out as a win-win for everybody involved.' As for why he does what he does, besides being a car enthusiast and industrially creative, Bishop told me: 'Part of the satisfaction is knowing I am doing something to keep the car community alive, maintaining the machines we all know and love so we can carry on doing what we do. This whole process contributes to reducing how many cars we scrap and get rid of, reducing pollution and waste in our industry. We can even use recycled and recyclable materials to produce these new parts.' In the future, 3D scanning and printing of roadworthy components might be doable with equipment you can buy at Staples, with AI handling the rendering in between. But until then, outfits like Bishop's here are a huge boon for car culture. I can't tell you how long I've looked for stupid little trim pieces on my mildly obscure cars like my old Nissan 300ZX; I could have skipped a lot of fruitless searching with a service like this. So next time you're coming up empty trying to find a little plastic piece that's no longer available, see if somebody like Bishop can scan, redesign, and 3D print it for you! Know about any other cool car cottage industry operations? Drop us a line at tips@
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Magnetic 3D-printed pen could help diagnose people with Parkinson's
It won't be much good for taking down notes, but a 3D-printed pen filled with magnetic ink could help identify people with Parkinson's disease, a small pilot study suggests. More than 10 million people worldwide are thought to be living with Parkinson's, a neurodegenerative disorder with symptoms including tremors, rigidity, slowness of movement and mobility difficulties. While there is no cure, early diagnosis can help those affected access support and treatments earlier. However, the team behind the new work note diagnostic methods based on observations of motor symptoms are often inefficient and lack objectivity, while those based on biomarkers – such as levels of substances in the cerebrospinal fluid – often involve specialist equipment and highly-trained healthcare professionals. Now they say they have developed a pen that can capture tell-tale motion signs to determine if an individual has Parkinson's. 'It is very cost-effective and fully accessible for lower income countries,' said Prof Jun Chen, co-author of the study from the University of California, Los Angeles, adding that the system would be linked to a phone app to analyse the results. Writing in the journal Nature Chemical Engineering, the researchers report how they created a pen containing a soft, silicone tip embedded with magnetic particles. The pen was then loaded with an ink that contained tiny floating particles that were magnetised by the tip. When the pen is applied to a surface, the magnetic properties of the tip change. This, together with the dynamic movement of the ink during handwriting, produces a voltage in a metal coil within the pen, resulting in current signals, which are recorded. 'We are using the handwriting-generated electrical signal to quantify the tremor during [writing],' said Chen. The team found signals made when participants drew wavy lines, spirals or writing – both on surfaces and in the air – accurately captured the movements. They then used a variety of machine learning models – a type of artificial intelligence – to classify handwriting signals from 16 participants, three of whom had Parkinson's disease. The researchers found that, after training, one model was able to distinguish patients with Parkinson's from healthy participants with an average accuracy of 96.22%. Chrystalina Antoniades, an associate professor of clinical neuroscience at the University of Oxford who was not involved in the work, said people with Parkinson's often developed smaller handwriting than normal – although this was often seen once symptoms of the condition have begun. But while Antoniades said the pen-based approach was interesting and intriguing, she added that further testing was required, and many other approaches for early diagnosis of Parkinson's were also in development. 'What I always say is that you can't just have one biomarker. This [pen] is diagnosing the problem with handwriting, which is just one of the many symptoms that we see in our patients,' Antoniades said. 'But it can be complementing what we already found, picking up something that might be difficult to see.' Becky Jones, the research communications manager at Parkinson's UK, also welcomed the work, noting there was still no definitive test for Parkinson's. 'While this study is very small, involving just three people with Parkinson's, it offers a new way of thinking about diagnosis by measuring changes in handwriting, which can be an early symptom,' she said. 'We now need larger, more diverse studies, to better understand the potential of this method and how it might support earlier and more accurate diagnoses in the future.'
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Daily Mail
World's tallest 3D-printed building is unveiled in Switzerland: Futuristic tower stands at almost 100ft tall - so, would you be brave enough to scale it?
Among the charming centuries-old cottages, an elaborate white tower in Switzerland stands out like a sore thumb. Constructed by robots, it's the world's tallest 3D-printed building, measuring almost 100 feet (30 metres) in height. To put that into perspective, that's more than six times the size of a double-decker bus! Known as Tor Alva (the 'White Tower'), the gleaming white construction in the small village of Mulegns offers a new tourist attraction and cultural hub. Tor Alva is intended to emulate a layered cake – a tribute to the history of confectioners in the region – and also takes inspiration from filigree, an intricate metalwork technique used in making jewellery. Giovanni Netzer, founder of the Origen Cultural Foundation, which designed and built the tower with ETH Zurich, called it 'a technical triumph'. 'It inspires the building sector, encourages sustainable tourism and offers new cultural space,' Mr Netzer said. It's now open to the public - so, would you be brave enough to scale it? The White Tower, officially unveiled on May 20, is now open daily for guided tours and will host staged performances from July. At the very top is a cupola theatre, a performance space described as a breathtaking venue with spectacular views of the surrounding mountain landscape. According to ETH Zurich, the 32-capacity tower is designed to serve as a cultural hub and a way to breathe fresh life into a village threatened by depopulation. Mulegns is home to only around a dozen people – down from about 140 in 1900, 50 in 1980 and 30 in 2000. Unfortunately, the rapidly plummeting numbers mean it is at risk of being depopulated entirely, turning it into an abandoned ghost town. 'Tor Alva breathes new life into a historic community while setting a global standard for sustainable, culturally vibrant development,' the project's website says. According to experts, the tower representing a 'symbiosis' of 'architecture, culture, and science' is made up of 32 unique 3D-printed columns. Each column is 'articulated with a bold array of forms and intricate ornamentation at multiple scales, giving the structure an enigmatic, otherworldly presence'. Designed as an immersive performance space, the White Tower features a cupola theater enveloped by a forest of filigree branching columns – a 'breathtaking' venue above the village rooftops (bird's eye view) A special mix of concrete was used, dispersed layer-by-layer by massive robotic arms programmed with blueprints and instructions. Developed by Professor Robert Flatt at ETH Zurich's Institute for Building Materials, the mix had to be soft enough to bond in the elaborate shapes, while hardening quickly enough to support the subsequent layers. It took five months to print the columns on the ETH Hönggerberg campus in the outskirts of Zurich, about 80 miles away. Components were then assembled in Savognin and delivered to Mulegns via the Julier road in a heavy goods vehicle before being assembled on top of a building formerly used as a blacksmith's shop. 'With its striking architecture and groundbreaking use of technology, the White Tower exemplifies the transformative potential of computational design and digital fabrication in architecture and construction,' the experts add. 'The use of 3D printing enables a bold, non-standard approach to architecture, offering an extraordinary range of shapes and forms.' It's unclear how much has been spent on the project, although similar large-scale printing projects exceed 1 million Francs (£880,000), Concrete Connect reports. MailOnline has contacted ETH Zurich for more information. Mulegns is not the permanent home of the Tor Alva, however; in 2030, after five years, the tower will be dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere to give another settlement a boost By that time, it's hoped Mulegns' population will have recovered thanks to media exposure from Tor Alva and the associated tourism. The alpine village flourished in the 19th century as returning emigrant confectioners built grand villas and hotel pioneers fostered a thriving tourism industry. 3D printing is increasingly becoming a building method of choice to reduce human labour and speed up the construction process. One US firm called Mighty Buildings is offering customisable 3D printed abodes starting from $100,000 (£75,000) that fit in a back garden. 3D PRINTING TECHNOLOGY MAKES OBJECTS BY DEPOSITING MATERIALS ONE LAYER AT A TIME First invented in the 1980s by Chuck Hull, an engineer and physicist, 3D printing technology – also called additive manufacturing – is the process of making an object by depositing material, one layer at a time. Similarly to how an inkjet printer adds individual dots of ink to form an image, a 3D printer adds material where it is needed, based on a digital file. Many conventional manufacturing processes involved cutting away excess materials to make a part, and this can lead to wastage of up to 30 pounds (13.6 kilograms) for every one pound of useful material, according to the Energy Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. By contrast, with some 3D printing processes about 98 per cent of the raw material is used in the finished part, and the method can be used to make small components using plastics and metal powders, with some experimenting with chocolate and other food, as well as biomaterials similar to human cells. 3D printers have been used to manufacture everything from prosthetic limbs to robots, and the process follows these basic steps: · Creating a 3D blueprint using computer-aided design (CAD) software · Preparing the printer, including refilling the raw materials such as plastics, metal powders and binding solutions. · Initiating the printing process via the machine, which builds the object. · 3D printing processes can vary, but material extrusion is the most common, and it works like a glue gun: the printing material is heated until it liquefies and is extruded through the print nozzle · Using information from the digital file, the design is split into two-dimensional cross-sections so the printers knows where to put the material · The nozzle deposits the polymer in thin layers, often 0.1 millimetre (0.004 inches) thick. · The polymer rapidly solidifies, bonding to the layer below before the build platform lowers and the print head adds another layer (depending on the object, the entire process can take anywhere from minutes to days.) · After the printing is finished, every object requires some post-processing, ranging from unsticking the object from the build platform to removing support, to removing excess powders.
Fast Company
28-05-2025
- Fast Company
This strange Swiss tower takes 3D printing to new heights
One of the world's most distinctive new buildings is now poking out of the center of a small village in the Swiss Alps. The structure, a cylinder of bone-white columns topped by a dome, wasn't built in the traditional sense. It was 3D-printed. It's now the tallest 3D-printed tower in the world, and it could offer a technique for other 3D-printed buildings to rise even higher. Standing on the base of an existing building, the tower rises to a height of 98 feet, with four floors connected by a central staircase. The tower itself is all structure, with 32 tree-inspired concrete columns forming a cage-like shell that's open to the air. Gradually widening as it rises, the tower's top floor is a double-height space with a wide circular platform that can hold dozens of people. The tower is envisioned as a performance space for Mulegns, a village of just 11 people in southeastern Switzerland. The roof of an adjacent building has also been used as the base for tiered grandstand seating that faces the tower. Known as Tor Alva, or White Tower in the local Romansh language, the project is a collaboration between the Swiss cultural foundation Nova Fundaziun Origen and the university ETH Zürich. It was designed by architect Michael Hansmeyer together with Benjamin Dillenburger, a professor of digital building technologies at the university. Possibly more consequential than its height, the tower's columns are also load-bearing, which enables the structure to rise so high. A special concrete mixture had to be developed to make the project possible, and represents a novel solution to the problem of reinforcing 3D-printed concrete, which can be difficult to do without sacrificing the speed and cost-efficiency of additive manufacturing. Most other 3D-printed concrete buildings are single-story structures as a result. This new technique involves a combination of two robots: One robot acts as the 3D printer, applying concrete in layers, while the other places a ring-shaped reinforcement in the new structure every 20 centimeters. Additional rebar is added after printing. In total, it took five months to print the 32 main columns of the tower, each of which has a unique spiraling ornamentation. In total, the tower is made of 124 3D-printed pieces and has a vague resemblance to a layered cake. This cake-like appearance is a reference to the region's history of confectioners, who developed new cake and candy-making approaches and brought them to other parts of Europe. The village Mulegns was once a center of confectionary arts, but is now depopulating. Tor Alva is seen as a new tourist attraction.
