Deep Facade

This lightweight aluminum screen, Deep Facade, is the world’s first full-scale architectural project to use 3D sand printing to produce a mold for die casting. The screen is assembled from 26 large three-dimensionally articulated aluminum panels up to the size of 22 ft², which were prefabricated in only three days through 3D printing sand molds and casting molten aluminum into them. The facade expresses the unlimited design and fabrication freedom offered by computational design technologies combined with 3D printing. The liquidity and strength of the metal are expressed through designing elements that are very thin but suspended in the air for long distances. It is almost like making jewelry but on a building scale. By combining a 2000 years old traditional process of metal casting with the most modern process, 3D Printing, this project showcases the advantages of 3D printing for the production of complex mold and the revival of cast metal in architecture. This project was designed and built together with the students of the Master of Advanced Studies in Digital Fabrication (MAS DFAB) at ETH Zurich in 2018 and as part of Mania Aghaei Meibodi’s research at Digital Building Technologies.

Status

Built

Chair

Digital Building technologies | www.masdfab.com | NCCR

Team

MAS students 2018

Instructors

Mania Meibodi, Marirena Kladeftira, Thodoris Kyttas, Benjamin Dillenburge

Date

September 17, 2020

Category

Installations, Research

Tags

Architecture