A project like this is heavily reliant on the knowledge and expertise of those who have far more collective experience than we do at this stage in our journey, and thanks are certainly due to two key institutions with whom we have been closely collaborating lately, Cardiff University and the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC).
We are particularly grateful to the continuing support and enthusiasm of Riccardo Maddalena, Associate Professor and Director of the Duralab at Cardiff University; and Brunella Balzano, Senior Lecturer at the Welsh School of Architecture. Their advice and encouragement has been invaluable in our research and development work, guiding us through the processes and offering testing facilities at the Duralab which simulates accelerated weathering of engineering materials: a perfect way for us to assess the durability of our 3D printed earthen samples for the UK climate.
And we were able to lean heavily on the guidance of the IAAC team as we undertook our 11 week on-site summer research programme. Particular thanks go to Nestor Beguin, who came from Barcelona to spend a week with our team training us in computational skills, specifically in Rhino and Grasshopper design expertise. Nestor’s wide knowledge of 3D printing with earth, gained from teaching the Postgraduate programme in 3D Printing Architecture (3DPA) at IAAC, gave us the grounding we needed to structure our summer research programme.
