On the 5th of June the Incubator 2.5 team organised its first expert meeting in Almere. Over 20 architects and material experts were invited to discuss the potential applications of 2.5 D printing.
As one of the first places that offered house owners the options to ‘built their own house’ (DIY), Almere is the place to find pioneers to explore new options for 2,5 d printing and find out how this new technique might shift the relations between architects, clients and material suppliers. The Almere centre for architecture Casla supported this session calling in the pioneers and hosting the meeting.
This first expert session mainly aimed to create knowledge by what we call a thinking trough making approach. The architects were challenged to tinker with the printed samples, designed by Research Associates Karianne Rygh and Cynthia Hathaway, that were placed on different tables. Using their expertise and experience, the architects questioned the material qualities and potential applications and grouped the different samples in order to give meaning to them.
Most of the architects were impressed by the detail in the samples and wondered about a range of practical issues such as durability, applicability and sustainability; after all the 2.5 D elevations are created by layers of ink. People of Océ were present and could answer most of these questions. The architects saw interesting applications for this technique in interior architecture, using it to customize wall paper, tiles or signage.
For a second experiment, the participants were asked what the technology means to them? How can they see it in their current practice? How would it shift the relation with their clients? Most of them could imagine that the technique would be available in a fablab environment where they could bring their clients to work on specific items. How that might change their own role as designers and architects will be further explored in the second expert meeting, in July.
At the end of the workshop, the architects present could hand in a request for one or a few samples to use in their own practice, with their clients. This will be a next step in the design research, which looks at how such a new technology like 2.5 D can find a place in the work of architects. The 2.5 D printed nametags DAE student assistant Mikaele Stenfalk created for the 4 June session were very much appreciated by the contestants and were taken home by them; something they can show already now to others and use to talk about what architecture can do with 2.5 D.