GXN explores how autonomous 3D printers can respond to urban & environmental change

The new “Break the Grid” initiative seeks to set 3D printers free to crawl, swim and fly in order to meet the challenges of population growth and global warming. This project is a collaboration between Denmark’s GXN Innovation, a subsidiary of 3XN, Dansk AM Hub and design studio, MAP Architects. Essentially, this initiative will look to study how autonomous 3D printers could offer a cheaper, better and faster way to respond to urban, social and environmental change. “Freeing 3D printers to meet these challenges could be a revolution in the making,” explained Kasper Jensen, Founder of GXN. “By enabling 3D printers to crawl, swim and fly, we can address environmental threats at lower costs and with greater efficiency.”

Autonomous 3D printing to change the future of construction

This research project comprises different scenarios where additive manufacturing could be the solution to global challenges. One major challenge is infrastructure. The objective would be to fix the decaying infrastructure in place, particularly for isolated road networks which suffer from small cracks, and fissures in the asphalt. GXN explains on their website: “An autonomous system of crawling 3D printers could scan and patch small defects on isolated roads, solving the problem before it becomes unmanageable.”

Credits: GNX

The next objective is to protect the planet’s coastal habitats that have been and will continue to be affected by climate change. Coastal conditions are crucial for many populations, affecting an estimated 600 million inhabitants globally. As explained by GXN, “New approaches to coastal protection can focus on the seafloor to set in where the problem forms before hitting our inhabited costs to cause large scale social and economic damage.”