Oct 24, 2017 | By Benedict
Aectual, a sustainable architecture company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, is showcasing its custom 3D printed floor designs at Dutch Design Week, October 21-29. A floor with terrazzo finish will be installed at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport in November.
3D printing is commonly described as a “bottom-up” technology, because of the way it deposits one material layer on top of the next, starting—logically—from the bottom. So for architectural 3D printing specialists like Aectual, it seems entirely sensible to 3D print the bottom layer of a building or room: its floor.
At the Eindhoven-hosted Dutch Design Week, a massive exhibition that showcases the best design innovation in the Netherlands, Amsterdam-based Aectual is presenting its terrazzo-finished 3D printed flooring. The floors are made using the company’s smart technology that enables custom designs, made up of square-meter sections, to be printed on large surfaces.
The results are frankly spectacular, and with Holland’s first 3D printed flooring set to be installed at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport in mid-November, Dutch flyers and visiting tourists can look forward to seeing the amazing surfaces in a more natural habitat than the bustling Dutch Design Week.
The airport project also involves more established names from architectural 3D printing. It’s actually a commission from DUS Architects, the Dutch company responsible for the ongoing 3D Print Canal House project that once attracted the attention of former U.S. president Barack Obama. Although Aectual’s 3D printed floors won’t be installed in the Canal House (as far as we know), the Schiphol installation will purportedly have a DUS feel about it.
The best thing about these 3D printed floors, Aectual says, is that customers like DUS Architects can fully customize their designs to suit the building or room they are going to be used in.
So whether it’s a case of complementing wall and ceiling patterns, representing the atmosphere of a room, or even incorporating some kind of brand logo into the floor design, the Amsterdam company says it is fully equipped to make a range of unique pieces, with each square meter potentially different to the next.
To make each floor design, Aectual uses its own software, recycled plastic materials, and “industrial XL 3D printing technology” to fabricate a water-resistant and sustainable flooring section finished with a bio-binder terrazzo. Recycled materials are used as much as possible to ensure that the production process is eco-friendly.
The company isn’t kidding with its claim to “XL” additive manufacturing tech either: a massive six-axis robotic arm mounted on rails is used to deposit the material for the 3D printed flooring, allowing it to print directly onto huge areas of the ground. The company uses various 3D printing robots, which have respective maximum build areas of 2 x 2 x 4 meters, 8 x 2 x 2 m, or 2 x 2 x 2 m, and which can deposit up to 15 kilograms of material per hour.
Aectual CEO Hans Vermeulen even claims that the giant 3D printing robots can print 24 hours a day, seven days a week without maintenance.
“Our in-house developed industrial digital production technologies and software tools enable designers and companies to create tailor-made floor designs on any scale, anywhere,” Aectual says. “Because we produce on demand, we can quickly make changes to the design, and directly respond to any changing wishes during your whole process.”
Other Aectual clients include museums, hotels, and department stores, including Tokyo’s Loft flagship store, which received Aectual’s first ever 3D printed flooring installation.
Find out more about Aectual here.
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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What a nice floor
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