Stoffwechsel and 3D Printing in Architecture

semper oper dresden image taken at night
The Semper Oper Dresden, Oliver Haler.

Gottfried Semper was the architect for a number of important buildings such as the Dresden Opera and the ETH Zurich building. He also is jointly responsible for the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Naturhistorisches Museum and the Burgtheater in Vienna.

two sculptures, both busts the left is colored the white marble.
Comparison between a polychrome bust and one as we now can see without color.

As well as an architect he was a theorist and researcher. Capable of original thought and an iconoclast he was a key proponent of polychrome architecture and statues in antiquity. At the time theorists and researchers refused to believe that Roman and Greek statues were in reality painted in many colors to be as lifelike as possible.

images showing colored and white roman statues
Statues as we imagine them and how they were.

Ancient Roman and Greek buildings were also very colorful. Still to this very day the art and architecture of Rome and Greece is imagined to be very sedated and white whereas in actuality it was a riot of colors. Even contemporary movies and shows featuring Rome and Greece often imagine all the surfaces to be a calm and anaemic white.

A panel from a Sarcophagus showing how it was originally colored
Alexander’s Sarcophagus, Sidon.

This hampers our understanding of the Romans and Greeks. We can’t help but see them as somehow clinically detached aesthetes. On some level, Rome will always feel like some ancient space station where “great men” calmly walked on every street corner. White, clean, scarcely populated and quiet. Royal slippers side by side soft clicking set to a measured debate. The riotous multicultural chaos where people of every hue mingled (albeit not all equally, but this at least was a theoretical possibility for many) is unimaginable for many of us. Fascists often borrowed Roman grandeur replete with the clean and “pure” lines to give power to their rallies or buildings. It is unclear to what extent their borrowing was driven by pure esthetics or by the mistaken belief that ancient Rome was some kind of white Aryan populated operating theatre.

an image showing a polymer stencil that can make concrete floors look like bricks
This faux brick stencil can be considered a good example of a product that recreates past patterns.

In addition to some very significant works in paper and stone, many of Semper’s ideas have always intrigued. The one that grabbed me the most is stoffwechsel. Stoffwechsel is the idea that an object’s purpose will shine through, throughout successive changes in the material. The surface of an object could have patterns, shapes or texture of some kind. A new manufacturing process would then come of age. This process would not need these vestigial patterns, but they would be included anyway.

A wall showcasing different kinds of brick veneer, thin stone patterns that make things look like actual stone walls.
Brick veneer lets you apply a brick or stone pattern to existing concrete or other walls.

The classic example of this is wall coverings. Previously carpets were used as wall dividers in houses. Later on, new building techniques saw walls being used. These walls were then covered in tapestries to provide for isolation while simultaneously evoking the same look of previous rooms. In a later period, 16th-century wealthy people replaced wallpaper with floor to ceiling paintings. Then stone walls where developed and these were often covered in wallpaper. This wallpaper gave a blank plastered wall similar and familiar geometric patterns and warmth as the previous generation tapestries. Later on, we see bricks get replaced (in some cases) with concrete. The concrete is however given patterns to appear to look like bricks.

The Google Material Design Save Icon. This is an example from graphic design, where the old behaviour of storing files on a removable disk still lives through representations of that disk in some software programs.

Gottfried Semper’s theory of stoffwechsel is not widely referenced today (Please do correct me if I’m wrong, I have rarely come across him). Although in some quarters his work is revered more contemporary architects have replaced him in the collective mind’s eye. By firmly rooting architecture as an (at least partial) expression of communities driven by ritual and habit, Semper firmly roots architectural practice in history. By knowing him, we see architecture a little less as “great men drawing” and much more as a practice driven development within society as a whole. In Semper’s architecture, there are constraints, communities, practices and solidified ideas contained within a specific time.   As we, hopefully, come down a little from our pedestal starchitect world. A more humble and humanistic view of architecture such as Semper’s would in my mind be more fitting.

Products such as Marmoleum (made from jute, wood flour and linseed oil) have patterns that evoke parquet floors which in turn remind us of wood plank floors which in turn remind us of wood beam covered floors who in turn evoke homes made of wood entirely.

I’ve always felt that some starchitects made buildings to build their portfolios rather than homes or spaces that worked for the customer or the public. The result is an architecture that is pure Ego over function. Architectural awards have always struck me as analogous to giving surgeons points for the beauty of the scars they leave behind. Yes, it may very well matter, but the health of the patient matters more. By rooting architecture as a product of time and place while seeing patterns of vestigial structures repeat themselves through different materials and technology paradigms Semper gives us an architecture that to me feels real and expressive. Materials and history to a certain extent dictate form. While at the same time, to me, it feels comforting that the patterns and practices that surround us are lines of history signalling past technological shifts and the familiar. The room I’m in is not as a space drawn by a “macher” but rather a space communicating its current place and past patterns. It is as if every building is not only a statement but also a timeline showcasing past paradigms and shapes back to the beginning of building itself.

On the iPhone 7 Apple replaced the physical mechanical home button with its taptic engine. Once pressed the taptic engine moves the phone so the person gets a sensation of pressing a button even though there is no button. This complex part replaces the button assembly and allows for better weather sealing on the phone. In this example a complex new technology has been developed precisely to reinfornce an old behavior.

Some conservators removed pigment and paint spots from Roman and Greek statues. So convinced were they that these were meant to be white that they took scalpels to historical evidence so that the statue would conform to their idea of them. We still do this. In 3D printing houses, we are trying to recreate past shapes with new technology. A drawing and idea become the jumping off point to developing a technology. Brick houses, ideas and patterns are being made with 3D printing. The old paradigm is still in the driving seat esthetically, as is the old way of doing things. There are a lot of renderings and overclaim in the 3D printing houses business, and not a lot of actual buildings. Stoffwechsel is not just now driving a wall covering but firmly in the driving seat of the overall design with brutalist ideas and fanciful idiocy now possible with new technology. Rather than look at improving functionality or making better homes silly drawings are being printed. Some startups do seem focussed on functionality and technology, but most look for something space aged and then run with that.

Essentially we should make the Pantheon.

If we honestly looked at how a 3D printed building could be made in the least expensive way possible we would then have to change our ideas to match reality. The most optimal building would be a self-supporting dome. In this way, no supports or support materials would be needed, and prints would be quick, and all be in one layer with no lifting or retraction required. For many types of building, design retraction is not needed, and it is precisely these forms that can be printed the quickest, safest and cheapest. Doors and windows could be cut out of the dome form after the fact for example. Alternatively, a complete technical core of a building could be made offsite and lowered through the oculus. In that way, this cylinder could contain all of the water, electricity and other technical parts of the home and even be serviced or replaced centrally. Is this the be all end all idea of Additively Manufactured Architecture? I hope not, but it is at least an idea grounded in the process and limitations of the process that hopes to be efficient.

Made from clay the Musgum people of Cameroon make these Obo homes. The shape is an efficient catenary arch. The building has vents in it that keep occupants cool by circulating air. The spare, efficient shape has no waste on it, even the outside decoration is made to be foot and handholds so that the building can be repaired.

Lack of process understanding by architects and an idea lead approach is causing people to have to develop completely unnecessary features in 3D printers and unnecessarily raising the cost of 3D printing. Please let’s let the engineers run it this time?

When I used to live in Bahrain I was amazed that the most comfortable places to be where the traditional houses in Muharraq. They had thick walls to keep out the heat and were pleasantly cool due to the wind towers that guided wind through. This in contrast to all the other buildings which were freezing and clammy because of the air conditioning. The old buildings were designed with constraints in mind.

Design for Additive Manufacturing and optimising design choices from the start for 3D printing is where smart companies are now placing their efforts. Designing with constraints and advantages in mind is how rewards can be reaped. Its as if we’ve designed a roller ball pen and everyone is obsessed with making it look and work as a pencil does. I love stoffwechsel as a concept for viewing ceaselessly into the past, but it should not guide architecture’s future.

Desktop FDM 3D Printers Will Win in the Manufacturing of End Use Parts

A 3D Print in Matte Grey of an FDM part.
A Facilan C8 3D Printed Part by 3D4Makers.
  • Over 500 OEMs and over a 400 3D printing filament vendors have joined the desktop FDM 3D printing market.
  • One that has now seen the sale of over one million desktop FDM 3D printers worldwide.
  • Desktop FDM systems have developed very quickly with reliability, repeatability and print quality improving rapidly.
  • FDM is the most vibrant, competitive and fastest developing area of 3D printing
  • Touch screens, bed levelling and dual extrusion, are all emerging features. More companies are developing 3D printing software, and bulk filament prices are cratering.
  • Rapid shifts in this market have made open FDM desktop systems a viable contender for manufacturing.
  • With reliability and part quality improving, desktop FDM has gotten close (in some areas) to the output from industrial Additive Manufacturing systems.
  • For B side parts, tough parts and strong parts FDM is now a viable solution for manufacturing at scale using 3D printing.
  • Automotive, aerospace, industrial, machinery and manufacturing industries are using thousands of desktop type systems to manufacture parts.
  • Companies who wish to lead in manufacturing the future are now deploying hundreds of systems in arrays to produce end-use parts.
  • With high dimensional accuracy and good part, strength manufacturers are also finding that using desktop FDM to manufacture gives them the lowest part cost in 3D printing.
  • If one includes finishing and post finishing the part costs are much lower in desktop FDM than with other technologies.
  • There are of course exceptions, but as a general rule, a Kilo of desktop 3D printed parts can cost between $12 and $50 in desktop FDM compared to ranges of between $100 and $1000 per Kilo for other technologies.
  • Additionally FDM materials and material properties are often more familiar to them than the rather more exotic SLA (stereolithography, vat polymerisation) and SLS (selective laser sintering, powder bed fusion) materials.
  • The fact that the desktop FDM systems market is open and lets people use whichever material they would like is the main reason why I advise clients that manufacturing with desktop FDM is an excellent alternative to other technologies.
  • Materials developments are accelerating with flexibles, filled materials and custom materials being developed much more readily and inexpensively for desktop FDM.
  • By providing a low kilo price per part, a good time to part and OK looking parts, desktop FDM is winning in manufacturing.
  • In medical SLS still reigns supreme, indirect and smooth parts are still governed by SLA while for many individual parts and applications closed ecosystems are still more desirable.
  • In general manufacturing applications, however, it is FDM that is quietly gaining the upper hand.
  • Whereas some of my colleagues (and wannabe general consultancies without any 3D printing knowledge) believe in closed systems, I believe in the crazy, tempestuous world of desktop FDM.
  • A friend of mine opined that he thought that desktop FDM was dead. I was thoroughly surprised by this.
  • The rollercoaster is just picking up steam, and it will get crazier before it gets saner.
  • But, tens of thousands of end-use parts are being made on desktop FDM systems and used in industry at scale today.
  • I believe that in general manufacturing of end-use parts it is desktop FDM that will win out over other technologies.




An Animated GIF of a Shape Memory Alloy Soft Robotics Octopus Arm









The below robot uses 3D printing for circuits and a microfluidics.


The Wyss Institute jumping robot uses 3D printed gradient materials.










This soft gait robot was also made using 3D printing.




We Were All Makers Once

My initial explorations of technology lead me to take things apart and see how they worked. This is more difficult today. Increasingly technology is encapsulated in chips, boards, and software. Hidden. There is more under the hood as the hood becomes harder to lift. The things that surround us increase in complexity as well as obscure their methods evermore. Today opening up an object exposes not its inner mechanical logic and function but unveils a mystifying path of copper and chips.

Even the simplest things are Antikythera mechanisms; purpose lost to the depths in a sea of complexity. We throw away more complex goods every day at faster rates. Our landfill becoming more beautiful as each day passes. As our devices increase in sophistication, our immediate comprehension of them diminishes. Makers rise against this tide, wishing to understand, hack, change, appropriate, and most of all genuinely own the chipsam and
jetsam of modern life. I think it is wrong to conclude that the maker movement is some recent endeavour, however. Dreamed up at Faires around the world. We were all makers once.

I picked out the first gray hairs from the dark blonde, using tweezers. A tool I am very unfamiliar with. Was going to a Fashion TV Party. Figured that I didn’t want to give a model a Freudian body check at an inconvenient moment. Navigating the 3D space above my head in reverse I felt an immediate empathy towards the well-practiced plucks women do apace. Also, compassion towards the inept tinkerer before me in the mirror caught up in a life filled with screens and keyboards his dexterity excellent in FPS games but negligible with any real tool. His hands more often busy moving a cursor across a screen than things in the real world. I also thought through my life.

We think of ourselves growing wiser, smarter and more experienced. We think of year by year being better able to handle the increased load that this world levies upon our shoulders. A gradual Atlas rising, bearing new continents, mountain range by mountain range. But we lose something as well. In this growing up. This long-term thinking. This analysis. This experience. It makes us lose the innocence of wonder. In response, many suggest to “seize the day.” I hate Carpe Diem. The fatalism and nihilism of it. The desperation. Opening up the world’s last vintage of Beaujolais Primeur as the Aliens attack. A frantic Waltz on Titanic teak as the bows burrow beneath the waves. A bear hug and bright whistle before we go over the top, escaping our muddy trenches for a brief moment of pounding earth under the open sun before we are cut down by machine gun. The desperate thrashing of a fish in a drying puddle.

We are young until we stop dreaming of the future. We are old when we dream only of a past not realized. Carpe Diem is a nightmare to me, a frenzied and pathetic plea to blithely spin the Roulette wheel. We wait our breaths entombed, for the plastic ball to deliver us from idle hope. Somehow this desperate hollow tic, tac, toc will place the ball underneath the right number and make everything OK. Anyhow if we keep joyously emptily tossing/spinning this ball, it will turn out alright in the end. A gambler’s idle hope, leaving the outcome to the fates. If you chose to be a passenger in this life, so be it. But, don’t you dare complain about landing at the wrong airport. Don’t you dare think that a last minute adjustment or a frenetic ever present tugging at the throttle will get you where you need to go. Seize the day all you will and all you want, but you will cling hungrily to only 1/29,000th of your existence. Rather than seizing a particular 24 hour period at a time, I believe it would be better to change our attitudes and frame of reference for all of our time.

Have you ever watched a child who is unable to walk trying to stand up? Not for one moment but for many across many an hour? They don’t do giving up. I don’t mean this in a Marine Corps ooooraaah “quitters never win” kind of way. It is not so much “failure is not an option” but rather “failure is not a concept I am familiar with at this point. I am trying to reach the ball on the couch and will continue to do this with all my energy until I am either distracted or fall asleep.”

Adults persevere, grit their teeth and pick themselves up with determination. Adults motivate themselves and cheer themselves on as they go once more into the breach. For adults, the fear of failure and not accomplishing a task often drives them. For adults, it is in the face of opposition that we win. For long-term goals, these may be useful skills, but as an attitude in life, it pits you against the world and the world against you. The planet becomes an obstacle course to be defeated, rather than a garden of wonder to be explored.

Small children, they just keep on going. Try stand, tumble over. Try stand. Fall. Try stand. Fall. Rinse repeat. They just want to know what’s on top of that table. Want to see the view from the couch. Want to reach something out of reach. There is no darnit, no feeling of lack of accomplishment rushing over you like a cold riptide come out at you from beneath your depths. They just keep on going. Again and again and again. Their wonder and curiosity keep them at it. Gumption and effort are natural byproducts of their many quests and in seemingly limitless supply. The world is not filled with things that can not be done or should not be done but rather things not known, things not explored and things not seen. It is a wonderful thing to see the world like this, not in terms of “seize the day” but rather in terms of “let your curiosity seize you.” Letting your curiosity guide you to do things for curiosity’s sake. In other words, live not as if each day is your last but rather if it were your first. The wide-eyed sponge taking in information, learning, exploring, experimenting, seeing what in this world does what. This to me is what making is. And, all children are makers.

Central to their lives is the curiosity-driven construction, destruction, tinkering, and analysis of the objects in their path. What does this thing do? Can I eat it? Is it strong? What happens when I throw it? You might laugh at a kid hitting a toy against his head or biting everything but how exactly would you go about making a Vickers Hardness scale or determining something’s approximate tensile strength without the prerequisite tools? How would you right now with your bare hands impact test something? Life is one big Beagle journey or Star Trek away mission where everything is new and unknown. Experimentation, observation, and curiosity the only tools. As dexterity increases and the mechanical properties and uses of many materials have been explored the child sets out to truly create. By the time they are given crayons or other materials to formally make they’ve been doing it for years of course.

Adult minds separate and categorize, the world neatly subdivided. But, kids have been, to possible chagrin, making with food, dirt, sand and anything malleable they can get a hold of for years. You might not like your child playing with their food but must admit that of all the materials they come into contact with many food items represent a tantalizing opportunity to make. If almost all the things you touch are hard plastic or wood, then mashed potato upon contact will instantly be recognized as an exciting material to create something with. Meanwhile, it will take some years for them to receive a similar material that has been cleared for the ‘make things’ category called Play-doh. This upon closer inspection is indeed more colorful and strong than mashed potato but does not taste as good.

Kids create unbounded. Unworried about the result. Caught up in the creative process, modulating, repairing, changing tack, a whimsical journey with no end. They make and make, creating everything without fear of failure. They are exploring, trying, learning again and again.

Then we start growing up. We start to notice that Mary makes much nicer paintings than we do. We realize we would never be van Gogh. We start to compare ourselves and our output to the world at large. Start to give up because we don’t have certain skills, rather than just continue exploring only to discover that we had learned these skills along the way. We start to measure ourselves. Grade ourselves. Compare. Feel that we had failed. We worry that the things we made were ugly. We doubt our ability to do certain things. As our knowledge of the world increased our belief in our abilities decreased. Part of this is encountering realism, longer-term goals and learning more. But, a part is also that we stop doing for doing’s sake. We stop exploring, being as curious, being so unbridled and unbounded. We categorize this world and place ourselves in these categories limiting the type of things we do. We start to touch things less and let our lives revolve around screens. Passive watchers observing stories unfold rather than active makers of things. And we do “get ahead, ” but we also lose so much.

Oh, to live each day as if it were your very first. Wide-eyed, imagination unchecked and curiosity absolute. To just be busy with one’s hands. To understand and learn. To make, create and break all of the things then remake them once again. To eat Play-Doh and make something with mashed potato. Make art without wondering what a critic would say. Letting your curiosity seize you into doing something for doing’s sake. This is the reclaiming of a part of your former self. This is the reconnection you have with your wide-eyed past. It is this that you rediscover when you become a maker. We were all makers once, and then we grew up.