How can the technique of layering develop new methods, techniques and technology of imagining, designing and making a form?

Using the layering process, the idea explores how the layering of concrete, clay and mud, the relentless three-dimensional deposition of extruded lines of material, and the act of layering can explore new strategies for imagining form. 

Additive manufacturing or 3D printing allows to create products swiftly and more efficiently then before, but these products don’t feel personal, they’re merely a product of this new technology. 

This exploration of layering process started with the process of a potter  making a pot on the wheel. The rotating base acts as his machine, the clay as the material and the form is given manually with hands. The potter does have a sense of a whole but not the details of the form. Similar to that of a rammed earth wall. The shuttering partly decides the texture or the shape of the wall and partly how the mortar is being deposited layer by layer. Then came in the additive technology usually know as 3d printing, the mechanical age, where this technology attempted to claim ownership of the entire process of form making. Where a technology fed design is created through the mechanic depositing of the layers. 

The fact the form can be mechanically produced changes out relationship with it.  With the introduction of this digital language, the system of exploring form  has dismantled into digital mediums.  This kind of translation of the form mechanizes the forms and human instinct/impulses are hijacked.  What is the human role of exploration of forms with such system of the machine. This projects aims to explore various technology of exploring various forms as an attempt to reclaim ownership by physically building and powering through machine. To rediscover the sense of having created or explore various form partly manually and mechanically. 

The apparatus functions by exploring various materials and its density by using various tools and various forces of depositing material layer by layer. This will help exploring the form with a  physical and an emotional connect to the form while also exploring various technology. 

Additive Manufacturing Technologies

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a term used to identify the manufacturing processes performed by 3D printing through layer-by-layer construction. In addition to avoiding the generation of waste through the use of precise geometries and exact quantities of material, these controlled processes can be much faster than traditional ones, since they don't require tools or other instruments.

Additive Manufacturing is done based on a digital model. The process begins with a CAD design or three-dimensional scan and then translates that shape into an object divided into sections, allowing it to be printed. Its use has extended from industrial design to the replica of archaeological objects to the manufacture of artificial human organs and tissues, among many others.

About Experiments:

AIMS: 

Exploring various forms through the layering process of additive manufacturing where the machinic process is partly  explored manually through different tools that apply different forces and with various density of the materials. 

METHOD: 

1. Exploring various densities of mortar with different additives.

2. Choosing a tool of deposition where there are various types of the outlet (diameter of the opening), the way in which the force is being applied (top or side ways), the support system. 

3. Setting up the base and the room temperature.

4. Starting to deposit the material in layers through the tool.  

MATERIALS: 

Clay, Adobe, White Cement, Grey Cement 

TOOLS: 

Piping cone, ketchup bottle, snacks maker

LEARNING:

1. while making the mortar, all the four mortars had different textures that came when mixed with water. The amount of water is crucial because it is the main agent for setting up the density. 

2. As the additives were added the texture and the density changes again.

3. When it is put into a tool, and the manual process of deposition starts, each of the material responds very differently such as the form wasn't maintained and it flattened, the water and the mortar separated, the layers broke in between, some of them were very smooth.

MATERIALS:

TOOLS AND APPARATUS:

EXPERIMENTS:

Learnings from experiments:

Learnings from experiments:

Learnings from experiments:

Learnings from experiments:

These experiments being conducted in a domestic environment, the exploration of the tools or the machine happened in a certain way. Learning from the machine and then the constant engagement with the tools and materials in the domestic space and so these learning from these experiments can then engage in the long term engagement with the process of  making through layering.