Concrete Design Masterclass: Students Explore 3D Printing with Concrete
The Concrete Design Competition is a design contest for students of architecture, civil engineering, interior design, and art, held biennially in Belgium, Ireland, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. The students who qualify for the Concrete Design Masterclass are the winners of the Concrete Design Competition. Each edition, one of the participating countries takes turns as the host and organizer of the joint International Concrete Design Masterclass. For the 11th edition of the competition (2023-2024), the Netherlands has been chosen. The event will be organized at Saint-Gobain Weber Beamix in Eindhoven, a leader in 3D concrete printing innovation.
This year, the Concrete Design Masterclass is being organized by Tektoniek, a platform for concrete architecture. “We challenge the students to design with concrete, exploring the unique and aesthetic properties of this material within the theme of this edition, ‘Presence’. This challenging theme focuses on how the material can impart a tangible experience to the shape of a space or object in the built environment,” explains Cindy Vissering from Tektoniek.
3D Concrete Printing at Weber Beamix
The winners of the Concrete Design Competition 2023/2024 will spend a week this summer developing their designs under expert guidance. They will do this in two ways: using a 3D concrete printer and with molds made from textiles. Weber Beamix is providing its expertise and facilities, allowing the students to learn how to design for the 3D concrete printer. In addition to designing for the 3D concrete printer, the masterclass is also intended as a hands-on workshop where students will create textile molds themselves. “The forms produced by both textile molds and 3D printing are unique, perhaps even organic in nature. Therefore, both techniques can be explored together by the students,” explains Siebe Bakker of bureaubakker, who is leading the masterclass. Particularly noteworthy is that the 3D concrete printer being used is an industrial printer, which has already produced several bridges (including world firsts).
