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The Arabesque Wall is a highly complex computer-generated form created by Benjamin Dillenburger and Michael Hansmeyer for the 3DXL exhibition. At almost 10 feet tall, the form was modeled using complex algorithms and subsequently 3D printed as thousands of layers. The Arabesque Wall,a 50 gigabyte file, took months to design and four days to print the sheets, which were then assembled in a four-hour period.
The work is a highly complex form which folds and intersects with its own surface hundreds of thousands of times, producing a form with over 200 million individual surfaces. These complexities are of a level so intricate that humans could not fully conceive of them without the aid of computers. Hansmeyer and Dillenburger believe that this type of application of technology in architecture can augment our understanding and experience of architecture, saying “Architecture should surprise, excite, and irritate. . . it should address not only the mind, but all the senses – viscerally. It must be judged by the experiences it generates.”