Bamboo is a strong, sustainable and very diverse material. It can be used to build amazing structures (like this and this). Techmer ES (TES), a manufacturer of high-performance custom compounds used in the plastics industry, recently partnered with the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Branch Technology to create a large-scale installation for Design Miami. The seating and counter space of the structure was 3D printed using bamboo-reinforced compounds.

TES designed custom carbon fibre-reinforced ABS materials to help build the installation’s arc canopy printed by Branch Technology using their free-form 3-D printing technology. ORNL 3D printed seating and counter space using TES’s bio-derived PLA compound that is reinforced with bamboo fibres. The bamboo-reinforced components were printed using a Cincinnati Incorporated Big Area Additive Manufacturing, or BAAM, machine. The PLA/bamboo-reinforced material is supplied by TES in the form of 1/8-inch pellets, like is the case with most of the company’s other materials.

Within a four-week timeframe, they worked through challenges related to the PLA and bamboo fibres and successfully formulated materials that met the installation’s structural and extended outdoor durability needs.

The installation was commissioned by New York-based architecture firm SHoP Architects, and was on display at the Design Miami show on 30 November to 4 December 2016.

Photos: techmerpm.com / compositesmanufacturingmagazine.com / ptonline.com