D-Shape on Using 3D Printing to Support Biodiversity in our Oceans

D-Shape is the brainchild of Pisan Enrico Dini, an engineer, inventor and CEO of the company that aims to offer and create technologies to construct less expensive and more “beautiful” buildings. Their most important project? 3D printing artificial reefs to save the planet! These ecologically suitable modules have been designed for underwater environments, with a number of projects for coastal protection and restoration already in place around the world. In this interview, Enrico Dini told us the exemplary story of the birth of D-Shape and their ongoing projects to safeguard the beauty of the planet.

3DN: Could you introduce yourself and D-Shape

Hi. My name is Enrico Dini, I am an engineer and also an inventor. I spent the first fifteen years of my life in automation and robotics before returning to my field of education, engineering, with the idea of 3D printing houses. I come from a Pisan family with deep roots in academia and industry. My ancestor Ulisse Dini was a distinguished mathematician and rector of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa; my father Egisto was head of the Calculations Office at Piaggio in Pontedera and the right-hand man of my godfather, the engineer Corradino D’Ascanio famous inventor of the helicopter and the Vespa. To them I owe my aptitude for invention.

D-Shape is the brand under which my companies convey the technology of my invention known in the academic world as 3D Particle Bed Printing. D-Shape designates at the same time a fabrication method, a machine, and above all a project with a mission in the field of architecture. As much as D-Shape produces 3D printers, today it is completely focused on the production of bio-attractive and regenerative modules for underwater environments, commonly known as Artificial Reefs, in English. The headquarters are in London, but the production units are in Tuscany. We also recently opened a branch in Hong Kong, D-Shape Limited, with which we hope to expand D-Shape in Asia.