By Alex Knapp, Forbes
3-D Printing is probably one of the most exciting technologies emerging right now. As it becomes more accessible, it will truly revolutionize manufacturing and materials science. (And you know it’s on the move since it’s already involved in intellectual property litigation.) Last year saw a number of stunning innovationsin the field, and the best innovations are still to come.
Neri Oxman, an architect and professor at the MIT Media Lab, is working on one such set of research — using 3-D printing technologyfor buildings.
It'll be interesting to see if this becomes a feasible building process. The minute control over materials made possible by 3-D printing could definitely make a difference in pre-fabricating materials for construction. But I think the big question here is whether it can be cost-effective over current techniques--and whether customers will buy even if they are.
Still, I think it’s an exciting avenue for research and I’m excited about the possibilities for this technology to be applied to construction.