Neri Oxman Engineers the Future: ICON, April 2013

2013  By Nuit Banai, ICON, Issue # 118

The affordable and ubiquitous 3D printer can realise digital ideas and make sculptural copies. However, the objects that have been produced on them so far have been of relatively poor quality. In this issue, rather than discussing the limitations of existing technology, we wanted to look into the future at the possibilities rapid prototyping might offer. Liam Young offers a tour of such a future, imagining a sci-fi city that might 3D print itself so that it is ever expanding. We talk to Neri Oxman (our cover star), who is producing “biologically inspired” designs in her lab at MIT. And we meet DUS architects, the Amsterdam firm racing to complete the first 3D-printed house. Up front, an Antarctic research station that can ski, MVRDV’s glass farm, animatronic objects by Dover and Cederbaum, an addition to Aalto’s Seinäjoki library, Edouard François’s housing scheme, Matali Crasset’s concrete furniture and highlights from Stockholm Furniture Fair and Maison & Objet. In Review: Light Show at the Hayward Gallery, Alice Rawsthorn’s Hello World, a Brazilian modernist at The Photographers’ Gallery and a report from Detroit in decline.