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Wednesday, September 18, 2013

A fully immersive, human-scale architectural object, created by michael hansmeyer and benjamin dillenburger emerges as the first life-sized construction to be entirely 3D printed out of sandstone. 'digital grotesque' is now a realized space, consisting of two individual halves that form an aggregate volume -- the grotto. from the outside, the structure presents itself as a cubical mass, but its interior hides an intricate geometry of millions of design facets. the room's impossible ornamentation and free-form geometries represent a paradigm shift within the field of digital fabrication. every aspect of the object is materialized by custom designed algorithms. using computer based data input, a geometric mesh of 260 million specified micro-details emerges as an architectural unit. the medium, and the process of its assembly, is a carefully chosen component of the project. sand-printing technology has recently emerged as manufacturing technique that overcomes the limitations of 3D printing, which typically is confined to prototyping and small-scale models. the process allows the creation of large-scale elements with high resolution and accuracy, which are fully self-supporting and can be assembled as a solid construction. in june, designboom covered the 1:3 scale prototype of 'digital grotesque', which premiered in the swiss art awards in basel, switzerland.