Design Museum - The Future is Here

LOOK OF EXHIBITION - CORRUGATED CARD AND PALE PINK PLASTIC... The Design Museum’s new exhibition on 3D printing and CNC (Computer numerically controlled) machining bills itself as an insight into the ‘new industrial revolution’ and how the lines between makers, designers and consumers could become blurred and how it could affect us.









Alex Newson, the curator, has the interesting thesis that rather than everyone is likely to modify their products rather than design from scratch. He sees more of the impact being felt in the manufacturing industry. Will we still be making products in China if techniques like 3D printing can bring down the cost and make it practical to produce things near to your consumers?

Another interesting idea in the exhibition was centred on the Keynes quote, ‘it is easier to ship a recipe than cake and biscuits.’ Design for the 3D printer or CNC machine will now be able to be sent anywhere. The Wiki house and Open Desk projects envisage a future when you’ll download a design you like and take it to a local ‘maker’ to be fabricated to you standards. 3D printing is already having an impact on Etsy. For instance, at the moment you can buy a 3D printed human skull,  a tranluscent model of a horse that shows its skeleton, a CNC machined jigsaw puzzle of the US interstate highways.

While 3D printing isn’t the only process in the exhibition, it is the most zeitgeisty one that has really captured the public imagination with a future where (in Wired’s words) ‘everyone is a gunsmith’ or giant spider robots build satellites. 3D printing – or additive manufacturing – make products by building up layers, rather than carving a shape out of a larger whole. Printers have become a lot more accessible in recent years after some early patents on the process ran out in 2009 (which shows just how not new the technology is!). Another patent expire next year for a process that allows plastic, metal and ceramics to be printed.

Most printers available to consumers are like a smart glue gun, building up plastic tp form a somewhat crude 3d project. However, they are already being used by the likes of Boeing and Siemans and commercial applciations can print aerospace parts in titanium, can print electric circuits (using conductive silver ink!) and may one day be able to repair wounds by printing cells. One of the ways this will really impact manufacturing is by gibing the ability to change what you make by tweaking software – rather than investing in a new machine. They have also been picked up by the medical industry – for example to make custom fit hearing aids. I wonder about the applications in the food insutry. I’d like to see Wrigley printing gum and Rowntree printing fruit pastels.

 My brother works in a factory that makes some very high tech plastics in England. 3D printing has huge potential for them and the products they can make. However, 3d printing isn’t likely to lead to mass on shoring and according to a recent Economist report Chinese policy makers see 3d printing as a big opportunity to retain China’s compeititve edge, despite rising wages.