HONG KONG—Get a load of this twisting tower made up of 2,000 3D-printed bricks. The Ceramic Constellation Pavilion was developed by students and researchers at HKU Faculty of Architecture in conjunction with Holger Kehne of Plasma Studio.
Each arrow, L- and T-shaped hollow terracotta brick is stacked and wedged between narrow wooden slats yielding a distinctive (and dizzying) floating brick-like effect. Inside the structure, the bricks appear to pierce the internal space.
Inhabitat writes the team began with about 1,500 pounds of raw terracotta clay and used the school’s robotic technology to pump out 2,000 bricks in approximately two to three minutes for each brick-that’s 100 hours of brick making magic, though it took three weeks to actually print the materials.
Each clay brick used to create the Ceramic Constellation Pavilion was individually printed in a unique shape or size using innovative robotic technology, which prints at a faster pace than most 3D printing machines and provides incredible versatility in the building process.
After firing the bricks in an oven at 1,877 degrees Fahrenheit, students assembled the pavilion during the ten day workshop.
View a slideshow of the process here.
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Do you love or loathe this brick tower from the worlds of contemporary ceramic art and contemporary ceramics? Let us know in the comments.
Un délire magnifique!