Nine concrete columns are lit below in front of a mountain in a nighttime scene thanks to the team from ETH Zurich
Researchers and students at ETH Zurich print complex columns for dance festival

For the Origen Festival in Riom, Switzerland students in the Masters of Advanced Studies in Architecture and Digital Fabrication program at ETH Zurich, guided by researcher Ana Anton, 3D printed nine unique, computationally-designed columns with a new layered extrusion printing process developed at the university over the past year and a half. ETH students and

A blue drone made for 3D printing with pink and blue glowing blades floats in front of a glass building.
GXN thinks the future of construction could be flying 3D printers

Most 3D printers, no matter their size, operate in a pretty similar way: they move along a grid to deposit material, sliding on axes in a fixed manner within a frame. Even those with more flexible arms remain fixed at a point. GXN, the research-focused spinoff of the Danish architecture firm 3XN, is looking to

A model in a structured, widening dress comprising slits of fabric walks through a ring of rotating silk leaves designed by Iris van Herpen
Iris van Herpen collaborates with architects for hypnotizing couture presentation

Since Dutch designer Iris van Herpen opened her eponymous atelier in 2007, the brand has become the face of high-tech fashion. Often the first to embrace new technologies like laser cutting and 3D printing in her fluid and futuristic forms, van Herpen has designed pieces worn by the likes of Solange and Rihanna, and, on the

A white hull-like structure mounted in a blue display area on a parking lot painted with pink shapes.
Architects rethink material and form with a new floating lab

For many, the future floats. Seasteaders, BIG’s floating city, the “Danish silicon valley” (at sea, naturally): in a time of rising tides, many are suggesting working with, or on, the ocean rather than against it. Add the Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab to the list. The 13-foot-by-8-foot object was designed by architects and designers Adam Marcus,

A dark map with green lines over the grid of Manhattan, created by MIT's Senseable City Lab
Can you capture a portrait of a city with a sensor-mounted taxi?

Big data and its purported utility comes with the attendant need to actually collect that data in the first place, meaning an increase of sensing devices being attached to all manner of things. That includes treating many everyday things, from skyscrapers to human beings, as sensors themselves. When it comes to the urban environment, data

An image of a large gray building with a sweeping concave roof on the water.
Why doesn’t the U.S. design buildings to survive earthquakes?

Earthquakes have been in the news lately with increasing regularity: Southern California recently experienced a July 4th quake registering 6.4 on the Richter scale followed by one just a day later at 7.1. It’s predicted that within the week there’s an 11 percent chance that a major quake could follow, and, of course, there’s the

An upward shot of an interlocking, biomorphic fiber structure presented at Exhibit Columbus
Exhibit Columbus’s inaugural fellow program to feature high-tech pavilions

Exhibit Columbus, the annual celebration of mid-century and contemporary design in Columbus, Indiana, will be showing off new possibilities of materials that unify support and envelope. This August,  two of the festival’s six University Design Research Fellows will present this work as part of a brand new fellowship program.  Marshall Prado, a professor at the

A top-down view of a construction scene
How can new technologies make construction safer?

Construction remains one of the most dangerous careers in the United States. To stop accidents before they happen, construction companies are turning to emerging technologies to improve workplace safety—from virtual reality, drone photography, IoT-connected tools, and machine learning. That said, some solutions come with the looming specter of workplace surveillance in the name of safety,