3D Printing | Customized Design or else Smart Manufacturing

Abstract

Which are the applications of 3D printing today? What is this new tech- nique radically conditioning? Or rather, what are the possibilities that lie ahead and have yet to find immediate concreteness? Here lies the object of my speech: the applications of 3D printing as part of the cross-relation in the field of Design between and research, teaching laboratory and concrete actions of companies – design oriented – which are intentioned to invest in the University and on the territory. From an ecological house with custom furnishings towards a medical direction, it is here that opens a world that makes sense. Artefacts – objects, products – are not mere materialization of a practical function, but incorporate in their form endless numbers of “ways of being”, giving rise to feelings, relationships and explanations of the world. Replacing a piece of plaster that keeps the bones locked during their calcification with a plastic printed orthosis means to shape an object which, although has a common function with the old plaster (without considering that the printed plastic orthosis is functionally better), holds a variety of roles, at first glance has an improved feeling on the arm, passing then to an aesthetic enjoyment, from a hi-tech vehicle to a custom, immediately available appli-cation, with a high-performance[1]. What does it then really mean to configure ob-jects, furniture, architectural parts, pieces of a city and medical implants through 3D printing?