Nov.1, 2012

After a six-week residency program at the European Ceramic Work Centre in the south of the Netherlands, Brian Peters, co-founder of Amsterdam-based Design Lab Workshop, developed a 3D-printed ceramic bricks project - "Building Bytes".

Peters has been working with desktop 3D printers for years and he wanted to use a desktop 3D printer to build large-scale construction. He added a custom extrusion head to produce ceramic bricks using fixed resources (a desktop 3D printer, limited capacity of the material storage system and the properties of clay).

This fabrication system, including the materials and technology, allows Building Bytes to be accessible worldwide. The bricks are made from a liquid slip cast recipe of earthenware ceramics, which is typically used for casting molds, while a standard desktop 3D printer is connected to an extrusion system consisting of plastic cartridges and air pressure. The only customization is a material extrusion head that only requires minimal changes to existing printers.

These 3D-printed ceramic bricks can be used for building large-scale architectural structures. Peters developed two design/ fabrication systems: a uniform structure (the same brick printed multiple times) and a varied structure (unique bricks that create a specific form).

Ribbed brick

applications: Columns, Window or Door Openings

Printing time: 15 minutes

Layer height: 2mm

Material: White earthenware (slip cast recipe)

Finish: Raw – unglazed

Dimensions: 15cm x 15cm x 4cm

"X" brick

Applications: Interior and Exterior Walls, Columns, Sun Shading



Printing time: 15 minutes

Layer height: 2mm

Material: White earthenware (slip cast recipe)

Finish: Raw – unglazed

Dimensions: 10cm x 20cm x 4cm

Interlocking brick

Applications: Walls, Domes, Vaults

Printing time: 20 minutes

Layer height: 2mm

Material: White earthenware (slip cast recipe)

Finish: Raw – unglazed

Dimensions: 10cm x 20cm x 4cm





Honeycomb brick



Applications: Interior and Exterior Walls, Sun Shading, Exterior Ground Cover

Printing time: 20 minutes

Layer height: 2mm

Material: White earthenware (slip cast recipe)

Finish: Raw – unglazed

Dimensions: 5cm x 20cm x 4cm



His idea is to have many of these 3D printer working simultaneously on site. "It takes 15 minutes to print a brick at the moment so I don't think I'd be necessarily competing with existing construction materials but the benefits are that you can design a custom-made house or structure and have it assembled on site," he said.

Peters demonstrated the 3D printer and his 3D-printed ceramic bricks at Dutch Design Week held from 20~28 October in Eindhoven. His next plan is to create a large 3D printer for making full-scale structures.

Images credit / Source: the Zeen & Building Bytes

Posted in 3D Printing Technology

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Lucas wrote at 10/21/2017 10:30:49 AM:It seems to be based on a 3D systems printer



