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i.materialise brings 3D printing to museum of contemporary art

For those of you who fancy a portion of grand culture and art with a side order of the lovely city of Antwerp, we’ve got great news for you. The Antwerp based museum M HKA and i.materialise have joined hands to bring you a glimpse of the 3D printing experience.  Not only will you be given an introduction to the world of 3D printing during this event, but you’ll also be able to enjoy exquisite exhibitions like the one of grand artist Jef Geys who believes that 3D printing is the next step in concepts surrounding art and production.

We found Jef Geys’ question, “What makes an artwork real and what is it that gives it its uniqueness?” quite interesting in relation to 3D printing. Take Martin Douven for example, whose work is being showcased at the M HKA thanks to Jef Geys. Martin Douven was a self-taught artist who taught his children to create and replicate famous paintings applying the “painter’s chain” method. It was a method by which paintings were created in some kind of assem

Hurray! Prime Gray is back to stay!

It took longer than expected to put the material back on the shelf. There was a bit of a hesitation from our side. The material looks fantastic: it has a great color, it is smooth, shiny, affordable and offers high details. Prime Gray has however some disadvantages : only the up-side has that famous shiny look and it is sensitive to scratches. After counting the votes, I”m proud to announce that the ‘Yeas’ have won it from the ‘Nays’ !

Conclusions of the trial period
The trial period showed that prime gray was mostly used for:

  • miniatures – for its detail,
  • figures – for the looks and detail,
  • jewelry and art – for its introduction price
  • but also functional models – to test its functionality

We got very positive reactions. People were getting impatient that the decision took so long time. Your mails have made the decision balance tip over to the ‘Yeas’ side. So now, Prime Gray has earned a permanent spot in our Periodic Table of Materials as the elemen

Jewelry design workshop: too many applicants – great fun – wonderful results

Last June, we posted an invitation to participate in a special contemporary jewelry design workshop with Karen Wuytens, lecturer in Jewelry Design, and famous hat designer Elvis Pompilio http://i.materialise.com/blog/entry/i-materialise-3d-printed-jewelry-workshop-by-karen-wuytens. The workshop took place in early September at the .MGX flagship store in Brussels.

Unfortunately, we had to limit the amount of participants to 10, meaning that many applicants were unable to join in on the fun. However, the lucky 10 participants were not complaining about the cozy atmosphere as they spent 2 days at the .MGX flagship store, where they received an intro to 3D printing from i.materialise. Karen Wuytens shared how to design a piece of jewelry, starting from a basic shape. Fabien Franzen taught the participants how to make their design in the software MOI3, which is very well suited to jewelry design. And finally, Elvis Pompilio was on hand to impart some expert design advice.

One week

3D printing blood vessels


© Fraunhofer IGB

At TEDMED 2009, Dr. Anthony Atala, the director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, showed a new type of technology to print a kidney-shaped mold. During his 18-minute talk, he explained how one day this technology might be used to print actual organs. Unfortunately at the time, most press and media didn’t completely get the point and started reporting about “the world”s first 3D printed kidney”. Although we are a long way from applying this to patients, the technology shows promise.

Also in 2009, 5 Fraunhofer-institutes in Germany joined forces to come up with bio-compatible artificial blood vessels. Two years later, the German scientists say they”re building a 3D printer that can print out artificial blood vessels. Through their BioRap project the Fraunhofer team says, they expect to be able to supply artificial tissue and possibly even complex organs.So far, a major stumbling block in tissue engineering, was the inability to supply art

The City Game: The Rotterdam Edition

The Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) is a museum, archive, library, and platform that wants to get people of all ages involved in architecture. One way of doing that is through educational programmes. One of those programmes is called ‘The City Game: The Rotterdam Edition’, a game aimed at pupils and students in primary, secondary and higher education. The purpose of the game is to build a city together and discover that the process is about more than construction alone. As every student has its own wishes and interest, the discussion sets off.

To introduce the game, a guide takes the students to the Treasury, where the most beautiful scale models from the NAi collection are displayed. The students can see how famous architects design cities and buildings.

At the top floor of the museum, the students play the city game. Working in small groups, each group selects a part of the floor map and uses scale models to plan a quarter.

Since the old wooden scale mode

The New Craftsmanship: Iris van Herpen and her Inspiration

27-year-old Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen creates stunning designs with a sculptural allure. She has already won numerous awards, her collections have been received with great enthusiasm by the international fashion press, and pop icon Lady Gaga is a huge fan. But when van Herpen revealed Capriole – her Fall/Winter 2011-2012 collection – on a Paris runway this summer, it didn’t take long before someone dared to call her “the next Alexander McQueen”.

It doesn’t stop there though. For the upcoming exhibition ‘Industrial Revolution 2.0: How the Material World will Newly Materialise’, curator Murray Moss selected two of her pieces to be on display in the world’s greatest museum of art and design: the V&A in London. You’d better be fast to visit the event because it opens the 17th of September and already closes on the 25th of September.

Or you can take a trip to the Centraal Museum in Utrecht who devoted a complete exhibition to one of today’s most talented Dutch fashion

3D printing in the world’s greatest museum of art and design

Renowned New York Gallery owner Murray Moss has collaborated with .MGX and Materialise in the creation of the first ever exhibition at the Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum to solely feature 3D printed pieces: ‘Industrial Revolution 2.0: How the Material World will Newly Materialise’.

Founded in 1857, the V&A is regarded by many to be the world’s greatest museum of art and design, with collections that span 3000 years of history and focus on teaching the principles of good design. They now consider 3D printing significant enough to be worthy of an exhibition, and significant enough that they have acquired the Fractal.MGX table and the One_Shot.MGX stool for their permanent collection.

The exhibition will form part of London Design Week and showcase works by Stephen Jones, Patrick Jouin, Iris van Herpen, and many others.  The pieces will be displayed in prominent positions throughout the museum, encouraging visitors to discover the futuristic creations in the context of thei

Master hat designer Elvis Pompilio goes 3D printing

For Design September 2011, .MGX by Materialise announces a new collaboration with Belgian hat designer Elvis Pompilio (born 1961). The master hat designer has already collaborated with big names in fashion such as Chanel, Dior, Valentino and Hugo Boss. Royalty worldwide and celebrities like Madonna, Joan Collins, Harrison Ford and Sharon Stone are part of his clientele. Over the years, Pompilio has been consistently praised for his work in the Belgian and international media. His creations are part of several permanent collections, including the Muséee Grévin and the Muséee des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

The Spirograph.MGX marks the start of a long term collaboration with .MGX in which Pompilio will design a series of hats and accessories via 3D printing.

To kick-off Design September in style, Elvis Pompilio will share his design knowledge and vision with a selection of 10 designers during a 2 day master class on the 8th and 9th of September in the .MGX flagship store in B

Columbia GSAPP Saturated Models 3D printed: Handrail

Alistair Gill and Veronika Schmid held a Saturated Models seminar at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. During the seminar the Master’s students explored 3D printing and created 3D printed objects. i.materialise made the resulting 3D prints. This is the sixth interview with a team of participating architecture students and their project: Handrail.

1. Who are you?

The Handrail Folk:

Brian Buckner – Advanced Architectural Design
Carolina Glas – Advanced Architectural Design
Damon Lau – Master of Architecture 1st yr.


2. What is Handrail?

A handrail is an object of vigorous interaction. It is solid, structural and for all intents and purposes supposedly a safe object which assists when an accident occurs. The safety of this banal object intensifies the irony it’s the devious intent potentially invigorating the relationship and creating a series of interactions that are predicated upon this unique scenario. The expectation of the object

A Moore’s Law for 3D printing

Moore’s Law (transistors per chip) and Hendy’s Law (pixels per dollar) have been useful predictors of where processing power and digital photography were going. Tech thinker and write Johnny Ryan believes something similar would be really useful for 3D printing. He already tried to plot a law for the quality of print per dollar of 3D printers for an article he has been working on for the McKinsey Quarterly, but he doesn’t have the data. So he needs your help to gather it. What he wants, is to plot something along these lines: quality (lower microns etc. + multi-materials) improves at the same cost every X months/years. Plotting this would help people plan for, and benefit from, the disruption of 3D printing.

3D printing will create massive opportunities. But it will also disrupt many businesses. According to Dr. Ryan, we need to be able to plan properly for it to get the best out of this transition. A Google spreadsheet has been set up where anybody can contribute data points to