incremental3d and The Challenges of 3D Printing with Concrete for Design and Architecture

Additive manufacturing is expanding into more and more fields, and with it, new materials are being tested. One of the most promising is concrete, especially in residential construction. incremental3d has been dedicated to this type of 3D printing since 2017. Its founders, Georg Grasser and Johannes Megens, were already working together on additive manufacturing and concrete at the university before starting the company, and now they’re applying what they’ve learned to some pretty unique pieces. Read our interview with them below!

3DN: Can you introduce yourselves and tell us how you got into 3D printing?

We are incremental3d, and we’ve been in the world of 3D printing with concrete since 2017. In addition to running the company, we are research associates at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Innsbruck. 3D printing has been around in the industry for some time, although at first it was used almost exclusively for models. Around 2012, the Institute of Experimental Architecture set up a robotic laboratory where automated manufacturing techniques have been researched ever since. Later, we began printing with other materials and in larger sizes; in 2015, we started working with concrete.

Johannes Megens (left) and Georg Grasser (right).

3DN: How did incremental3d come about, and what is its goal?

We founded the company in 2017 as a spin-off from the University of Innsbruck. We had already been researching 3D printing with concrete for over two years as part of a joint project. When we saw that there was demand and that the technology was already yielding decent results, we decided to take the plunge, but without jumping straight into large-scale production: we preferred to start with a few select projects. Yes, we started out more with design objects than with architectural works, although our intention is to eventually work on architectural scales; however, those pieces serve as our benchmark for quality, and that standard doesn’t drop when we do something bigger.