Hi,
I've started a large 3D printing project. It's a project where almost everybody can help.
The project is about 3D printing, sharing, and about a community effort to reach its goal.
I've designed an egg shaped pavilion, of 5 x 4 x 3 meters, consisting of 4760 stones. Each stone is unique and different. All these stones together, connected in the right order form the building.
I'm asking everybody with a 3D printer to help build this pavilion.
What you can do, is print a stone, with your 3D printer. This way, everybody actually owns part of the building. When you adopt a stone, your name will be in it and will be seen when ever the pavilion is exposed.
You could ask yourself, why this building.
For a lot of us, specially when you see it first, 3D printing is a kind of a miracle.
After some time, some of us, I at least, are wondering what more you could do with the machine. We're in a transition phase, I guess. We could try and print things that are already there, we could also try to move on by printing things that aren't there yet. That is the field I'm walking on these days. What can this machine bring us that couldn't be achieved any other way.
I tried to start all over. With nothing 'in my suitcase' to start with. I decided to sit amongst the nature things I loved, and tried to find something that breathed the same as what I liked in this collection of things.
It's inspired by nature, yes. But I am not trying to copy nature, no. What I want is to find out where 3D printing can lead us to.
We're totally free, actually. We don't have to work with the laws and rules of the 'old world'.
We can re-invent, start all over with as only limitation that the printer has to be able to print it. That's what this building and the project is all about.
If you compare it with the old world, you can easily see the differences. I maybe want to build something but I am not going to team up with an architect, a specialist, but am doing it myself with the help of a few people that do know a lot more about forces and strength then i do.
When I want to produce the thing, I don't go to a firm that is specialized in building things, No, again,I do it on my own, but with the help of a lot of people that also have a very small factory in their homes, workshops or school, and see the possibilities and fun of this new way to produce.
Suppose I want to sell a large pile of what ever I design, I don't go to a firm that is specialized in finding people to buy it, No, I go on the Internet and try to draw attention for the things I do myself.
So you see, it's not a world of specialists anymore, but in a way a very democratic version of the old world.
Maybe I'm wrong, or partly wrong but it give me a very good feeling to be in the middle of this changing of perspective and I like playing a role in it.
What a wonderful world, we live in.
Will you help me?
If you want, please go to the project egg website http://www.projectegg.org/
and go to the contributers page. There you can choose a section of the egg you want to print a stone for, fill in the form and send it to me. We will answer with a mail containing an STL that is ready to print.
After that, you can send it to one of the collection points in the US, UK or Else. In March, it will be sent to the Netherlands, to my studio where it will be assembled, and moved to Milan where it will be shown during the International Furniture Fair.
It goes without saying that you are all very welcome to admire this largest community driven 3Dprint art project to date.
Thanks,
Michiel van der Kley
