The house of the future will be printed on a 3D printer from Shanghai.Don't believe me? We interviewed the world's first and only specialist who uses this technology for the benefit of the interior. Our guest is the founder of Xuberance, architect Steven Ma. We had barely gotten used to 3D cinema and 3D graphics, and new products are again at the door: progress is on the alert. The Xuberance design studio from Shanghai was the first in the world to print decorative elements and interior items on a 3D printer. The material that comes out of the Chinese superlaboratory is very similar to super-soft and super-strong leather. But no. This is a unique polymer: it is equally suitable for a wedding dress and a fashionable lamp.
Steven Ma, one of the founders and ideologists“Young”, but already very famous in the architectural environment of the Chinese project, we miraculously caught at the Milan exhibition dedicated to the latest technologies in design and architecture, and pulled it out of the tight ring of curious fans and followers. This is not surprising: the ability of 3D printing to adjust to the needs of each consumer is a real gift for a designer. Our editor-in-chief Oksana Kashenko interviewed Steven Ma and asked him the most pressing questions. Lera Wang and Steven Ma, architects A native of Hong Kong, Steven received his Master of Architecture in 2008 from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), in 2006-2008 he worked as a leading designer at Xefirotarch in Los Angeles, then as an architect at Coophimmelblau in Vienna, where he specialized in digital visualization and 3D technologies. He often visits the Vienna University of Applied Arts now - with lectures. In 2008, together with two like-minded people, Ben Lu and Leroy Wang, Stephen founded the experimental design studio Xuberance. xuberance.org
— - Stephen, your colleagues callXuberance is an absolutely innovative phenomenon in contemporary design. Why? What is unique about your work? — I would answer with the words we came up with when we founded the company. Xuberance is not a protest or a manifesto. It is a celebration of new possibilities in contemporary architecture and design. By and large, we do not sell raw materials or finished goods. Our product is design services in and of themselves. We exist for those who would like to create a more individual and personalized world around themselves. — How does this happen in practice? — The easiest way to explain this is with the example of a wedding that we organized in Shanghai and turned into something like a performance for fifty people. Literally everything there, from the wedding cake, clothes and cufflinks to devices and lamps, was invented and developed by us and then printed using 3D printing and our own materials.
- Who are your clients?Why do they come to you? - Mostly, these are people who want something special, individual. Sometimes these are souvenir sellers, for whom we make very precise figurines of the tallest building in Shanghai - the Shanghai Tower. Sometimes - banks and insurance companies. Sometimes - hotels, for which we create unique lamps with a complex digital design. Quite often - ordinary people who need something unusual, for example, a piece of jewelry as a gift, which you definitely won’t find in any store. In any case, we are always talking about a very small number of items - 30-40, in rare cases it reaches a hundred.
- How much does such work cost?— — It is certainly not cheap at the moment. The price of lamps starts at one and a half thousand euros. There are some for seven and a half thousand and more. Jewelry can cost much more. But believe me, this will not last forever. We are still at the very beginning of the journey, and projects like Xuberance are isolated. Over time, the technology will become widespread and the price will change. The market is still skeptical about 3D printing, because it is captive to the stereotypes of mass production. But the next generation will already be free of them. Just imagine the opportunities that will open up. If you have one good design project, you will be able to make a hundred items based on it, but not identical ones, but with exactly the properties and characteristics that each customer needs. This is a new industrial revolution. The future belongs to it!
xuberance.org ma-steven.blogspot.ru
Special report: home accessories printed on a 3d printer
