Architecture is ripe for the creative and experimental options that a tool like 3d printing gives. Emerging Objects is the result of that fusion. Emerging objects comes out of the unique opportunities that 3d printing lends to architecture when it comes to experimenting with material, form, and scale. The ability to both experiment and prototype while producing a finished product is hard to achieve with another manufacturing process.
The phrase “Emerging Objects” comes from architectural and artist duo Virginia San Fratello and Ronald Rael. Together they explore experimental materials in 3d printing with the hope of influence emerging architectural practices. Two of their previous projects show how 3d printing can challenge ideas of function and aesthetics in design.
The Seed Stitch Wall – Ceramic Wall Cladding
The Seed Stitch Wall is a prototype for a 3D printed ceramic wall cladding system. Whereas most applications of 3D printing demonstrate how 3D printing allows for mass difference, Seed Stitch is an exercise in mass complexity and allows the influence of the hand, gravity, temperature, and the attempts of a machine to print an unstable shape, to produce difference.
Burl – 3D Printed Wood
Burl is a product of the 3D printing of wood, exploring the forms and thickness that is possible with this as an emerging material in additive manufacturing. Like a burl found in nature, this burl contains cracks, deformations and dense layers of growth rings—a product of the layers of manufacturing.