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The emergence of “4D printing”
Artist/Scientist: Skylar Tibbits
TED Talk: “The Emergence of 4D Printing”
When I observe the rapid pace at which technology and hardware is evolving, I have to think of all the technology and hardware that becomes immediately discarded as a result. The materials that we have used to build our homes, cities and products cannot provide us much more than what their static form allows, other than the ways we can use that form for creative reuse. So what will happen when our environment changes faster than we can build the proper tools and technologies?
Skylar Tibbits, Co-Director and founder of the Self-Assembly Lab at MIT, is proposing the manufacture and use of “programmable” materials that adapt to the changing environment. He calls this material phenomenon “Self-Assembly” and defines it as a process by which “disordered parts build an ordered structure through local interaction.” By creating responsive building blocks that are constructed and reconstructed by using small amount of energy and interaction, people can build tools that suit the needs of a changing environment. Skylar and his team have been building these “responsive building blocks” with the aid of 3D printing. He calls this process of printing self-constructing objects “4D printing”, as the 4th dimension is the element of change over time.
