Students at at the University of Bologna are using 3D printing technology to prototype exciting new directions in architecture for their thesis project.

The model above was made to explore curvature driven porosity:

“Surface tessellation depends on curvature radius: strating from this simple principle a family of tessellations (with different parameter values) was produced and from the selected model holes were produced by percentage of vertex-to-vertex distance.” (see the Flickr photostream by Ale2x72)

Ideas like this can be quickly built using additive manufacturing techniques to determine if the design is viable and small scale versions of very large elements can be built for proof of concept.

via BLDGBLOG