Guest House, Parsberg

The eye-catching new boarding house on the AM campus of FIT Additive Manufacturing Group is the result of a close collaboration between our product designers, architects Berschneider + Berschneider, and the Sto Group, a manufacturer and developer of lightweight construction systems. The facade stands out by a novel surface accentuated by a complex pattern of cavities, so that the massive geometry of the matte dark cube gains a sense of delicacy and lightness. The crystal design is an allusion to the polygons that are the typical element of the triangle mesh – the smallest unit of data models in 3D printing and a very subtle design message.

The project "Facade 3000" is an innovative case study for 3D printed production tools in architecture. Special challenges included the creation of a cost-saving tool to produce individual facade panels on a larger scale, as well as the fast and economic production of the mounting panels.

The characteristic cavities are achieved by specially designed inserts into the panel molds. These inserts were also manufactured by us, using aluminum laser melting. Due to the extravagant geometrical form of the crystal inserts, this solution turned out to be significantly less costly than the corresponding conventional techniques. The only finishing effort left was blasting and grinding the edges evenly. They were immediately ready to integrate in the production tool by STO to form the design panels, allowing for an efficient workflow. Production speed of 20 simultaneous panels (in rotation) was another positive expense factor.