CONCR3DE

We all know success stories about people who have started companies in their dorm rooms (Facebook), or garages (Microsoft, Disney, Amazon). But what is the bouwko equivalent of these Silicon Valley hotbeds? A conversation with Eric Geboers, TU Delft built environment graduate, suggests that it might be the former Rotterdam Makers Space.

Together with Matteo Baldassari, Geboers founded Concr3de, a 3D printing company that focuses on highend details and finishes. The two met while working on separate projects in the Makers Space: “Matteo was mostly working with robots, making molds; very much the hyper body mentality. I had graduated with a project on salt and was making chairs out of it.”

The two found each other in a shared interest for robotics and materials and their belief that a lot more could be done with 3D printing than was the case at the time: “We thought we could develop materials that would make better use of the technique”. Starting with a simple business plan they were able to collect a starting capital and buy a second-hand printer.

Currently, 3D printing in the built environment is used for large-scale concrete elements, or as Geboers refers to it: “large sausage printers”. The entrepreneur points out that although interesting, they are difficult to exploit: “You compete with prefab, which can make things much quicker and more precise”. For new techniques it might also be more beneficial to work with customers who are willing to invest and experiment. “Most people who buy a house don’t want to experiment with it. They just want something that works”.

After the initial tests, it quickly turned out that one of the main limitations of the technique was the printer itself. So in an attempt to reinvent the proverbial wheel, the duo decided to develop their own printer from scratch. Participating in green tech accelerators, they got the required funds and started hiring fellow engineers. “It’s surprising how far you get with googling. But to develop this kind of machines, you need engineers”. Their efforts resulted in a successful business focusing on the sale of their printers and verified materials. Their printers can be classified in two segments: printers for production and printers for research. The latter of which is predominantly sold to research groups who want to develop their own materials, like ceramics, biomaterials, etc. “We also help people with it. If they want to develop a material with certain characteristics, we consult them.”

Five years down the line and the partners managed to break even, whilst realising some interesting projects along the way; “I thought is was so cool to work together with Zaha Hadid. It’s the kind of company you look up to as a student, that now approaches you for advice”. Apart from Zaha Hadid, they also collaborated with a research group from Harvard to reconstruct some details from the destroyed Palmyra heritage site. “With the help of the original curator, who was later also executed by IS, they managed to replicate a part of the city in Rhino and we ended up printing the parts”.

Although not their main market, Geboers is most enthusiastic about the technique’s architectonic freedom. It enables you to make any shape and offers new possibilities to make connections: “We’re used to thinking in planes. The technique allows you to think in a completely different way, which is difficult, but also super interesting”. Unfortunately, at the moment the technique’s architectural significance is limited by the printer’s size.

However, this might change in the future: “I can’t say much about it yet, but we are planning on making a really big printer”. This larger printer is expected to have the same accuracy as their currents printers, which means that on a scale of a few metres it could make details of 0,2 millimetres, which greatly increases the printer’s field of application.

A seemingly bright future for Concr3de, however Geboers’ vision for the technique is more humbling. In a previous interview with Pantheon, Paul de Ruiter, lecturer at our faculty and head of operations of LAMA (Laboratory for Additive Manufacturing in Architecture), claimed that 3D printing was going to take over the world. Geboers responds: “Take over? No, I don’t think so. A 3D printer is just a tool, like a hammer or a saw, and like a hammer it is not suitable for each job. As the technique becomes cheaper and faster, people will opt for it more often, but never 100% of the cases. I wonder if even 10% of the cases”.

“You also don’t say a hammer will take over the world?” - “Exactly”.//

All photographs come from Instragram @concr3de