Metro HippieDesign | Metro Hippie

Home Printing, Literally

Joshua Foss — Sun, 06 May 2012 22:18:48 +0000

So this is pretty much the bees knees! Gone are the days of thinking printers are just for paper. We’re entering an era where printing has added a dimension… we’re talking 3D of course! Rapid product prototyping is becoming a vital tool in many industrial designer’s arsenals now. But even beyond this is a different frontier… printing homes!

There have been several initiatives in recent years developing this concept of digital barn-raising. A homebuilder out of London called Facit is at the leading edge of this bespoke approach. They’ve fabricated a handful of houses that have partnered computer renderings with CNC milling machines. This home, pictured below, is one such completed project.

The process for home printing is quite simple really… the design team puts together their details in a CAD file and tests the build sequence using a 3D computer model. Once finalized, a series of digitally manufactured components are either be built in a factory or on a project’s site… these components are generally made from standard 4′ x 8′ sheets of plywood and are configured with a unique number defining a specific location and type. Once cut by a CNC milling machine, the components are then handled by laborers (no cranes or heavy machinery) and assembled very quickly. In a matter of days a small team can fully piece together an entire home… voila!

A Danish design and planning firm, 1:1 Arkitektur, recently constructed a digitally fabricated house of their own some 60 kilometers north of Copenhagen. For a brief profile of the project, check out this video here from Reuters…

Pretty amazing, eh?

I know what you’re thinking though… this is good stuff, but this technology most certainly relies on an expensive, architecturally-driven process that only a select few will be able to access… what about the 99%? : ) Well, in the name of keeping architectural innovation on par with social innovation, the design team of 00:/ have created an open source design and construction kit called WikiHouse. This series of drawings and plans are open and free for anyone and everyone via a Creative Commons license. Yes, it’s true, there is a god and she loves good design for all!

It will be fascinating to see if and when this WikiHouse catches on… I’m guessing there will be plenty of takers out there considering that homes are ridiculously expensive to build, and this one looks to cut construction costs significantly through both faster production and minimized labor.

And home printing cuts more than just costs… this digital approach to building can cut some serious environmental impacts as well. Homebuilding is a massively resource and energy intensive process. Home printing can lessen both of these aspects through simplification of material procurement and localized construction. It also drastically minimizes waste, which is not a small thing as some home builds send as much as 30% of construction materials straight to the landfills… lame!

So all in all, a pretty flippin’ exciting concept, eh? What’cha think, does this concept have what it takes to match Jonannes Gutenberg’s 15th century press?

-j

718 Cyclery

Joshua Foss — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 12:16:05 +0000

In Brooklyn, NY sits an incredible bicycle shop called the 718. It was founded as a resource to bring a bit of craftsmanship and collaboration into the community’s growing bike culture. Instead of ‘peddling’ prefabricated cycles like the majority of shops, 718 has created a process in which its customers can work in partnership with professional mechanics to design and construct their own bicycles.

It’s a pretty fantastic business concept which utilizes peoples’ innate desires to create things with their own hands… so long passive consumer! This short video below captures the gist of what the 718 is all about… def worth a peak!

Ride on!

-j

Southtown GreenBound

Joshua Foss — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 10:33:55 +0000

In 2010, Hilary Scruggs led her team to design and build a prototype for sustainable and affordable living in San Antonio, Texas. With inquisitive looks from passers-by, two aluminum encased homes rose out of a small plot in the Southtown neighborhood.

This is the Biering Project.

Supplementing the project is the following short documentary, Southtown Greenbound, which discusses the team’s experience designing and building the Biering. The film features conversations with an inhabitant, a builder, a sustainable building science expert, a developer, a realtor, as well as the designer herself – touching on issues of sustainable design and development. Enjoy!

Project Aura Lightin’ Up

Joshua Foss — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 06:30:53 +0000

I pride myself on minimizing the number of wants in my life, but damn… I WANT this!… in fact, I NEED this! It’s a want for the ridiculous amount of style that oozes from it, and it’s a need for its functional purpose of promoting safety… this thing truly embodies the power of design, and the recognition it’s been getting even before it’s hit production is a barometer of its market potential… I’m talkin’ about the Project Aura lighting system, a concept that integrates colorful LED lighting into the rims of a bicycle, changes colors based off of how fast one rides, and is self-powered by a front hub dynamo… Metro Hippie likey!

Carnegie Mellon industrial design students Ethan Frier and Jonathan Ota developed Project Aura to address night time bicycle safety through increased visibility. The duo recognized the high number of bicycling fatalities that occur each year (630 in 2009 alone), and that the most dangerous time to ride in cities is between 5 and 10 PM. Their concept brings light to the need for increased bicycle safety, and has been recognized as Core77′s Design Award in the Transportation Design category… pretty cool!

To learn more about Project Aura, watch this ridiculously fresh video below. And when you’re done with that, read up on the behind the scenes development of the concept from Ethan and Jonathan’s own blog called SURG 2011…