Additive Manufacturing for High-Definition Concrete Structures

Explore new ways to 3D-print optimized structures that can reduce concrete use in construction

To house our growing world population, experts estimate that we’ll need to build two billion new homes by 2100. With concrete production already responsible for 9% of the world’s carbon emissions each year, we need to find new ways to build if we want to meet that demand in a sustainable way. As an architect and professor of architecture, Mania Aghaei Meibodi is helping to pioneer multiple ways to use computational design and 3D printing technologies to create concrete structures that are structurally efficient and lightweight, so that they use less material. From additively manufactured concrete “smart slabs” to 3D-printed thermoplastic formwork for casting, she shares her work and projects from her students that can open new possibilities for building.

About the speaker

Mania Aghaei Meibodi is an assistant professor of Architecture at the University of Michigan, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. She is also the co-founder of the architectural design office Meonia. Her specialties are computational design and digital fabrication technology, including robots and CNC machinery.

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