Can You Print a Stadium?

 

Yes you can, although it will be a touch smaller than you'd expect. That's precisely what HOK Sport is doing. They are one of the world's leading architectural firms specializing in major sports facilities. Among their projects is the London 2012 Olympic Stadium. According to a recent Z Corp press release, HOK recently acquired a Z510 3D printer with which they will be printing out small scale models of their venue visions to help "our clients better appreciate the designs we propose, and the models inject a ‘wow’ factor into our presentations".

The speedy new 3D printing technique replaces the traditional model building approach of painstakingly assembling cardboard, bits of wood, etc. with glue. Now HOK can produce models in hours instead of weeks, making their sales cycle just that much more nimble.

This continues a trend in which established businesses are discovering the potential of 3D printing. It's mainly for models, for certain, but in time the market will grow and we'll see many more interesting developments in the next few years.

Via Z Corp and HOK Sport

Comments

[andrew]

The biggest challenge in this industry is the Architectural software. Today, many have started using google sketch up which is by no means a true cad software. However, with enough patience and the write expertise These files can often be converted to solid water-tight files for rapid prototyping. www.ems-usa.com has also been doing this for some time now.