Berlin’s 3D Printed Urban Green Habitat

Here at 3D Rapid Print, one of the fastest growing 3D Printing companies in the Thames Valley, we like to keep abreast of the latest innovations in 3D printing.

On July 31st 2019, self-appointed “global leader in large-format 3D printing” BigRep of Berlin, Germany announced the creation of a 3D printed urban plant and insect habitat, which it named the GENESIS Eco Screen. (BigRep described it as “the world’s first fully 3D-printed urban green habitat installation.”) The project is being led by BigRep’s so-called “innovation lab and consultancy” NOWLAB. Printing of the instillation via 4 BigRep ONEs started the same day at the Thaersaal of the Humboldt University Of Berlin, using a special filament BigRep had made from recycled plastic bottles. The instillation’s design was aided by computer algorithms, including an analysis of sunlight exposure across the installation’s geometry to optimise the diametres of the printed plant branches.

BigRep claim the GENESIS Eco Screen represents an example of circular economy and addresses environmental challenges like increasing urbanization, decreasing biodiversity, plastic waste and overconsumption of resources. (The concept of circular economy refers to an economic system that tries to reuse resources to reduce waste.) The instillation comprises 16 separate parts, measures 4x4x0.3m and resembles a Brobdingnagian monstrosity of a system of plant roots. (The word Brobdingnagian is effectively synonymous with immense or enormous; it originates from the demonym for Brobdingnag, a fictional land in the Jonathan Swift novel Gulliver’s Travels that is occupied by giants. The phrase “Brobdingnagian monstrosity” was infamously used in season 4 episode 4 of The Big Bang Theory “The Hot Troll Deviation,” where Raj Koothrappali buys an objectively huge desk for the express purpose of annoying Sheldon Cooper that occupies most of their office space.) The instillation also features an embedded water and drainage system for plants and insect habitats, including a bee shelter.

At the time of its announcement, the GENESIS Eco Screen was schedule to be finished in late August 2019 and to be displayed at Berlin’s Fiction Forum exhibition centre. In the meantime, the masses can see an exhibition at the Fiction Forum showing how BigRep’s special filament is made, including the used bottles being subject to shredding via a special shredder made by self-proclaimed “nomadic industrial design studio focused on sustainability and circularity” of raw paradise, also of Berlin.

In June 2019, BigRep had announced the creation of the Genesis Eco Screen’s spiritual predecessor and it named the BANYAN Eco Wall, which it described as “the world’s first fully additively manufactured (AM) green wall with naturally integrated drainage and irrigation systems.” It comprised four separate parts and measured 2x2x0.6m.

3D printing is an amazing tool. It can grow your small business or start a mini revolution in an industry. Explore what it can do for you when you contact us today.

Disclaimer: Featured image of “American homes and gardens (1911) (18131537916)” (as it is known on Wikimedia Commons) was taken from Flickr’s The Commons and has no known copyright restrictions. (On Flickr it is known as “Image from page 706 of “American homes and gardens” (1905).”)