FAB.REcology

In nature, structure is determined by performance: bones grow bigger and denser as they encounter heavier loads, and tree trunks develop strong spiral fibers in response to heavy winds. Neri Oxman, a PhD candidate in design computation at MIT, would like us to make buildings the same way. “Right now, the way we build is to have a different system made from a different material for each function of the building,” she says. “If you need more insulation, you build a second layer of facade and waste all of this material where it’s not needed.” As part of her dissertation, the 33-year-old
has created FAB.REcology, a fabrication machine that changes the very nature of a material as it is printed, taking the process far beyond the current abilities
of rapid prototyping.

“Imagine you are feeding concrete into the machine and you have some sort of mechanism that controls its density,” Oxman says. “The concrete can come out very dense and thick, or it can come out very porous.” Areas that are load bearing would be solid, while those that provide ventilation and light would be permeable, dramatically reducing material redundancy and energy demands. “The architect becomes this composer that controls material distribution,” she says. “It’s no longer about the shape of a building but rather its behavior.” And though Oxman is now limited to feeding the relevant environmental data into the machine at the lab, she imagines the technology evolving into a giant robot that would survey conditions and print a building on-site.