Kitchen & Bath Design News

OCT 2013

Kitchen & Bath Design News is the industry's leading business, design and product resource for the kitchen and bath trade.

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Design Technology { Eric Schimelpfenig, AKBD } Design and the 3D Printing Revolution Some are saying the 3D printed house is the future of construction – and this could have a profound impact on the design process and the role of kitchen and bath designers. A s I've said many times in the past in this column, we're in the midst of a big digital revolution. One of the big drivers of that is that computers have gotten cheap to own and are available anywhere. That means any developer – well funded or just working in his or her basement – can build the next great app. That revolution is in full swing. Now we're starting to see a new revolution starting up, and that's the 3D printing revolution. make all kinds of things: cell phone cases, cat toys, repair parts, tools and much more. That's all fun, but what if I told you that you could print a 3D house? Read that sentence over again…. Yes, it's possible, and it's happening right now. There is an open-sourced project right now called WikiHouse. They have developed a "kit of parts" that will let you build a house of your design out of 3/4" plywood. To build the house, you get SketchUp – a fantastic 3D automatically lay out your parts on 4"x8" sheets of plywood. Bring those fles, and a large truck, down to your local woodshop that's equipped with a robotic CNC router, and you've got the parts to assemble a house! Who said growing up was a bad thing? Instead of giving up Legos, we've graduated to life-size structures! At the end of this month, I and a small group of software engineers will be assembling a 24'x24' WikiHouse at the NYC Maker Faire. Because of the way it's designed, we're going to be able to assemble this thing with almost no construction experience. IMPACT ON CABINETRY For years, 3D printing has been something for huge companies with multi-million dollar machines to make product prototypes. Recently, however, 3D printing has become a whole lot cheaper and, as a result, it's available to many more people. I don't have a million dollars and I have a 3D printer sitting right next to me as I write this. With it I can modeling program – and then you can download their parts and assemble your house just as if you were working with Tinker Toys or a Lego set. WikiHouse has done all of the hard work of engineering the joints and creating modular sections of structures that won't fall over. In the 3D virtual world, you snap together the parts, and then the program will 20 | Kitchen & Bath Design News October 2013 WikiHouses are set up to receive roofng, fooring, drywall, electrical, plumbing and exterior sheathing. The whole idea behind WikiHouse is that the factory can be anywhere using tried and tested robotic CNC cutting equipment. This can reduce transportation costs, decrease design and build time and ofer great fexibility in design. Plus, with the beneft of engineers coming up with the joints, it frees up designers to design more. You didn't have to design the Legos as a kid, you just built things with them. Well, the same idea is true here. So, if this concept makes you want to put on your tinfoil hat and reach for your pitchfork, let me bring you back to reality. This is already happening in our industry. As you probably already know, robot CNC machines mill many of the parts that make up the cabinetry you specify. This allows cabinet companies to do a number of things. First, they can ofer many different door styles and confgurations without increased cost. What used to be a difcult moulder head change is now just a few lines of code uploaded into a machine on the fy. Second, this also allows for distributed manufacturing. With many parts of cabinetry being automated and mechanized, cabinet companies can distribute manufacturing across a large area. This essentially can bring the factory closer to you. Now this may sound like "With the power of manufacture being more accessible to the kitchen and bath designer, we're going to be more creative and custom than ever." we're moving towards standard SKUs and boring designs, but I think cabinet companies are becoming more fexible. I've seen many cabinet companies that used to be strictly SKU based become semi-custom companies because of this increased fexibility. PERSONALIZED PRODUCTS Another fantastic example of 3D printing in our industry is a division of a faucet company here in Massachusetts that not only makes high-production faucets, but will make runs as small as 150 faucets. It will take your idea, print out a sand cast facsimile of your design for your approval, and then make your run of faucets. If you're designing a hotel or large commercial space, you could use them to make a custom faucet that exists nowhere else. At an even smaller scale is a frm in New York City called Shapeways. Shapeways has many diferent 3D printers in its building. The company can make objects out of plastic, steel, gold, silver, ceramic and many other materials. Kitchen and bath designers just like you could design a custom cabinet pull, hinge, faucet or just about anything else. Shapeways will ship you your creation, or let you sell it on its store. Each item is built on demand and at a reasonable cost. Mechanization and automation can scare a lot of people, especially people in our industry, because they fear that their small custom nature will be erased. However, just the opposite is true. With the power of manufacture being more accessible to the designer, we're going to be more creative and custom than ever. Imagine a future where you can source your cabinets quickly and locally, and customize them as much as you want. In the back room you may be printing hardware, faucets, sinks and hinges, all designed just the way you want them. That future isn't far away; it's going to put designers more in control and it's going to be awesome. Eric Schimelpfenig, AKBD, has been an innovator in design and 3D technology for many years. He has worked with KraftMaid, Google, Masco and many other prominent companies in the kitchen and bath industry teaching Google SketchUp, speaking about technology and writing about innovations in technology. Read past columns and features and send us your comments about this article and others by logging onto our Web site: www.ForResidentialPros.com

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