Chair of Digital Building Technologies, Chair of Physical Chemistry of Building Materials, Chair of Structural Design, ETH Zurich
3D printing is used for the most resource-intensive process in concrete construction: fabricating the formwork. Beyond economic benefits, 3D printing enables several types of geometric features which are a significant challenge for other fabrication methods. Undercuts, sharp inner edges and micro-structures are difficult to achieve with CNC milling or hot-wire-cutting. Therefore, for the formwork of the Smart Slab, different 3D printing technologies were used to efficiently take advantage of their unique capabilities. Binder jetting was used for the most part, while fused filament deposition was used for locally integrating building services within the slab.