Advanced ceramics: 3d printing technologies for ecological architecture

The paper will focus on the role of open source technologies as potential drivers in contemporary city changes using digital fabrication and self-production processes for building ecological dwellings. Starting from the Mostafavi‘s concept of ecological urbanism, this research aims to find a new way to integrate the traditional building skills to the opportunities given by the open source digital fabrication culture, repurposing the earth made and woodless vernacular architecture to the contemporary innovative construction techniques. In this sense, the paper will describe the first prototype of structural skin that is conceived to explore the possibilities of using natural ceramics (desert clay of Morocco) for design and 3D print structural components involving local craftsmen. Moreover, the paper will focus on a design strategy through a bottom up approach, relying on the implicit self-adaptation features of clay and ceramics, in order to produce a catalogue of differentiated architectural configurations of performative “polybricks”. The outcome of this first step of the Advanced Ceramics research is to deal with the environmental, social and economic constraints to build the first performative skin prototype in Morocco. The next step will be to improve the participatory process and test a bigger 3D printer for structural components in order to develop a low- cost scale 1 to 1 dwelling for hot climate areas.