3D Printing for Housing. Recurring Architectural Themes

Our present era asks architecture to confront new questions; visions and scenarios that project social, economic, and environmental issues toward that particular intersection between the green transition and the prefiguration of housing solutions for the city of tomorrow. In this drive toward a sociocultural renewal, digital architectural tools play a crucial role in the optimization of resources, customization of building components, and promotion of participative designing-building processes. As an innovative technique of digital fabrication, Additive Manufacturing makes this mass production economically accessible, also on-site, and using local materials. While the topic of a ‘home for everyone’ has started to be addressed, experiments and applications often focus primarily on technical aspects. To be understood, controlled, and aimed at truly improving quality of life, these innovations require a reflection on the paradigms that inspire digital design. Can the adoption of 3D Printing change design theory and the ways of conceiving the spaces of the habitat of tomorrow? More in detail, is it already possible to identify some particular architectural features? Using a selection of case studies, this paper critically interprets and analyzes these questions [This analysis is supported by the knowledge acquired by the authors in previous studies of large-scale 3D printing (Paparella and Percoco in CHANCES. Practices, spaces and buildings in cities’ transformation. Università di Bologna, Bologna, pp 368–379, 2020)]. The return of recurring architectural themes—the concept of instant architecture, the relation between natural–digital ecosystems, or the issue of self-determination—offers different ways of looking at ‘printed’ architecture.