Saving the World Out of the 3D Printer?

If urban planner Carlo Ratti, director of the Senseable Cities Lab at MIT, is to be believed, in the not too distant future people will have their buildings designed by artificial intelligence and produced using 3D printers. At least that is what the central exhibition curated by Ratti at this year's Architecture Biennale in the Arsenale in Venice suggests.

Research teams from all over the world produce their material experiments with bioalgae, piz mycelium and innovative concrete mixtures, either in the form of huge termite mounds, rampant ground cover or sculptures that are reminiscent of laboratory experiments that have gotten out of control. Most of these installations may still pass as artistic experiments, but a connection to construction can often only be recognized at third glance.

In the Canadian pavilion, sculptures made of 3D-printed sand are gradually solidified by bacteria. © Jakob Schoof

Nevertheless, these experiments are in keeping with the spirit of an age that wants to completely reinvent construction – with more sustainable materials and different production methods than before. In most cases, however, their scalability is questionable. This starts with the availability of industrial robots and ends with the time it takes for microbial cultures to solidify sand into concrete. At least that is what the Living Room Collective, the curatorial team of the Canadian pavilion, is aiming for with its “Picoplanktonics” installation. The sculptures – from the 3D printer, what else – are fascinating to look at, but the material is completely useless for building.

Im dänischen Beitrag „Build of Site“ macht Søren Pihlmann die Baukonstruktion des Pavillons selbst zum Thema. © Marco Zorzanello

It was to be expected that Carlo Ratti's technical euphoria would also rub off on some of the national contributions in the Giardini pavilions. Others, however, take a much more down-to-earth approach to the subject of materials – by starting from the existing substance of a building. One example of this is Søren Pihlmann's contribution “Build of Site” in the Danish pavilion. At the same time as being appointed curator, the architect was also commissioned to upgrade the building itself. Or more precisely: to flood-proof the extension built by Peter Koch in 1958. Pihlmann and his team approached the deconstruction with surgical precision, dismantling windows and floor coverings and sawing up the concrete floor slab. The construction site is paused during the Biennale. All of the dismantled individual parts are – as far as possible – displayed separately in the building. After the exhibition, they will be reinstalled there – the refurbished windows in situ, the broken floor slabs as aggregate in the newly installed terrazzo floor.

The “Internalities” exhibition in the Spanish pavilion turns its attention to the resources of its own homeland. © Luca Capuano

The Spanish pavilion also demonstrated how CO2-saving construction can work in practice with the “Internalities” exhibition curated by Manuel Bouzas Barcala and Roi Salgueiro Barrio. Be it with regional sandstone and seaweed harvested off the coast of the Balearic Islands or with unburnt clay bricks from Catalonia. They are mostly produced by small family businesses, processed by skilled craftsmen instead of algorithms in 3D printers. A model for the whole world? The building materials may be different everywhere. However, the underlying mindset of focusing first on the resources on your own doorstep is fully transferable.