Alexander Lervik

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THURSDAY 11 APRIL 2013

Alexander Lervik in his studio with a 3D-printed prototype for the chair "Nest". Photo: Magnus Hallgren

The man who printed his brain thinks ahead

Three-dimensional printing is on a strong march forward. 3D objects can now be printed in everything from metal to glass and plastic, which can also be colored and patterned. DN has met the designer and 3D pioneer Alexander Lervik.

The future is buzzing at the very back of designer Alexander Lervik's office. You know what copy rooms usually look like, a bit messy and heated up by ugly machines.

In the corner, a 3D printer is at work. A print head moves back and forth, white plastic strips are slowly fed in, heated up, and printed out into a small, complex prototype. Lervik's 11-year-old daughter Lisa yawns beside it; this is nothing special to her. The rest of us who haven't seen much are amazed. But Lisa belongs to the generation that will use 3D printers in everyday life in the future, and her father explains:

— 3D technology will revolutionize manufacturing, medical technology, and also our view of unique objects, of form and craft, and the boundaries between them.

Alexander Lervik is a veteran in the field and created one of 3D culture's first Swedish signature objects when, in 2007, he had his brain scanned, printed out, and mounted as a lamp. There was a big sensation around "My brain", which became a symbol for the infancy of 3D technology.

In recent years, the phenomenon of 3D printing has spread rapidly with falling prices for objects, machines, and open-source software on the web. The technology has been around since the 1980s, and designers and architects have long used it in concept work and for handy prototypes in a biscuit-like, bone-resembling plastic.

Now you can choose materials; silver, glass, steel, clay, or sandstone, and color and pattern the prints. Three-dimensional objects are printed inside glass, something Philippe Starck has utilized at Heathrow Airport. In Amsterdam, DUS Arkitekter will soon print out a house in sections made of recycled plastic bottles and potato starch.

The possibilities seem fantastic. There is talk of digital craft, bioprinters, printed body organs, and nanoprinters the size of dust motes. Objects with over 70 moving parts can be printed out in a single print run. The technology to print an object in multiple materials simultaneously already exists, but is still far too expensive for the mass market.

— A regular chair in plastic and metal might cost 100,000 kronor. But the price will drop quickly, Alexander Lervik believes.

Now 3D printers are also used in smaller batch production. Lervik shows a ceramic base for his new lamp "La lumière au chocolat", which he is currently exhibiting at the Milan Fair. The shade is made of chocolate and melts(!), while the enduring lamp base was printed for around 200 kronor each at a print shop in Holland. Lervik has also designed 3D-printed metal jewelry for the fashion brand V Avenue Shoe Repair.

3D printing or AM (additive manufacturing) is a technique for producing physical objects directly from digital data. The American inventor Charles Hull received a patent in 1986, which led to the first commercial printers.

The technology has mostly been used for prototyping in design, manufacturing, and architecture. Classic car enthusiasts quickly understood the point of 3D objects as replacements for hard-to-find parts. In recent years, development has gathered speed with open-source printers and free 3D software on the web, such as Google SketchUp.

The fast-moving fashion industry will be strongly affected by 3D technology. Here we can still only sense the possibilities of working with entirely new materials and shapes that no hand can create in the same way, but which can meet the traditions of fashion. Michael Schmidt Studio and Francis Bitonti have shown a net-like, technically advanced dress, specially designed for model Dita von Teese. It was printed in 3,000 small parts of laser-cured nylon and assembled by hand.

Dutch fashion artist Iris von Herpen has long worked at the front lines of 3D technology, and in January showed a haute couture collection using the soft, durable 3D material TPU 92-A1. That printed materials can withstand wear and tear and rough handling has been demonstrated, for example, by English shoe designer Kerrie Luft, whose Art Nouveau-inspired shoes have needle-sharp, sculpted heels in titanium, printed with laser sintering.

In the ephemeral spaces of the web, ideas are easily copied and mutated. Copyright to originals is a future problem area. Your own 3D invention can quickly become someone else's, especially as 3D scanner technology evolves.

— Then you can scan a well-known piece of jewelry and have your own copy reproduced, says Alexander Lervik, who sees copyright and royalties as the major challenge for 3D technology, just like in the processes that fundamentally changed the music industry:

— We have to come up with a functioning system, a Spotify or iTunes of design where we can buy design digitally and then manufacture it, in the same way that a song can be downloaded.

Today there are countless 3D techniques. Common are composite printers, where objects are printed in thin layers of powder and cured by a so-called binder. Another technique is "laser sintering", where a powder is traversed by laser beams. At the points where the beams meet, the object is "printed" in, for example, plastic, metal, silver, clay, glass, or various alloys. With the "material jetting" method, several different materials can be printed out simultaneously, for example hard plastic and rubber. Printed laptops are being developed from this technology. Research is progressing rapidly in areas such as the construction industry, which may soon "print" houses in concrete. The price of printers and printed objects is falling dramatically. Companies like Shapeways are portals that offer 3D services with online shopping, manufacturing, or software.

Designer Alexander Lervik's website: www.lervik.se See more examples online: shapeways.com, sketchup.com, and turbosquid.com

DAGENS NYHETER. THURSDAY 11 APRIL 2013

Digital DIY culture is blooming like a new form of handicraft. Over 3,000 professional designers sell their things via the company Shapeways, which now prints over 30,000 unique objects a month under the motto "Made in the future. Made for you". On its digital marketplace, there are 3D programs, expert help, printouts, but also an enormous amount of gadgets: jewelry, art, fashion, coffee cups, Minecraft players' favorite buildings, and mobile accessories.

3D items do not really represent anything new, but evoke associations with the 19th century when photography, print shops, and porcelain factories enchanted their era through the technical ability to recreate styles, reproduce, and copy. In the design world, the great gain with 3D printers is that the path between idea, prototype, and production has become smoother and cheaper. Soon, anyone will be able to test a flash of genius and, in a couple of hours, produce an object, hold it in their hand, and test it.

But what about craft? Do we like a printed object in silver or clay as much as a handmade one?

— 3D printing is just a new production method with its limitations and qualities. The important question is probably what you want to do with it and whether it feels like craft. Objects that are a bit too perfect and too identical from piece to piece do not communicate what our customers want, says Åsa Lockner, jewelry artist and curator at Konsthantverkarna.

Yet the ancient tension between the handmade and the machine-made already seems to be crumbling. Ceramicist Mia E Göransson is more curious than worried about the development. Her background is rooted in the strictly ceramic, where the feel of the material is decisive for the experience.

— I still want to believe that you can find contrasts and fun encounters between 3D and handmade. But if everything is possible and creation becomes too easy, then I lose the desire. Somewhere there must be a framework and a resistance that drives good ideas and objects forward. With printers, that slow, important process can be disrupted, she says.

Perhaps it is precisely about time? Fast technology drives fast thoughts and a kind of restless objects, quickly made, quickly forgotten. 3D technology needs researchers and artists who explore the possibilities and find new energies between handmade expressions and the properties of printers.

Experiments are already underway, including at colleges in Holland, where the presence of the hand is mixed with 3D technology. So far, it has mostly resulted in skewed bowls, but development is rapid.

— We are in the baby stage when it comes to the technology. Sure, you can print a coffee cup with us, but it is still quite expensive and the question is whether you want to use it, says Nikolaj Farrell at ABA-kopia in Stockholm, one of the large copy shops that have embraced 3D technology.

He says that curious people often get in touch wanting to print out some exciting thing. People also show up with regular digital images and ask for a 3D printout, but it isn't that simple yet, even though 3D scanners are developing fast. Farrell describes a future where different materials can be printed together on an almost molecular level, soft with hard, metal with rubber, electronics together with plastic, glass, or wood.

Beyond mere gadget manufacturing lies 3D technology's great adventure, medicine. The spare-parts human seems to be advancing into biotechnology and out into the big questions of life, death, and repairs. Already now there are printed and functioning hip joints, hearing implants, dentures, and jawbones. 3D heart valves are ticking. It may take decades before functioning organs can become commonplace, but NovoGen, the world's first commercial bioprinter, has already printed blood cells. And a kidney made of human cell tissue has been printed.

Today, the 3D phenomenon is not unlike the delighted, boundless childhood of the IT wave. In video clips online, dreamy 3D enthusiasts talk to yearning music about dizzying possibilities. But as with the internet, strong commercial interests will control and make use of the rushing 3D technology, not least within weapons technology.

That the web is overflowing with 3D drawings of functioning weapon components is a nightmare that was briefly glimpsed on SVT's "Kobra" the other week. Over time, the fantastic will nevertheless seep into the everyday routine. Imagine a world without the internet; that is impossible today. It will be the same with 3D printers; tomorrow we will use them side by side with the handmade and the analog, the things we need and like the most.

Petter Eklund form@dn.se

Printed things.

1. In Alexander Lervik's studio, a 3D printer feeds out a model of his "Spike chair". 2. For the fashion brand V Avenue Shoe Repair, Alexander Lervik has designed 3D-printed metal jewelry.

3 and 4. At the ongoing furniture fair in Milan, Alexander Lervik is showing his new lamp "La lumière au chocolat". The shade is made of chocolate and melts while the lamp base has been printed using 3D technology.

5. Model Dita von Teese wore a technically advanced dress designed by Michael Schmidt and Francis Bitonti. It was printed in 3,000 small parts of laser-cured nylon, assembled by hand, and decorated with 13,000 black Swarovski crystals.

6. The portal Shapeways is the first to offer 3D objects printed in glass, like this one.

7. You can also have objects printed in different colors via Shapeways...

8. ...and have your personal jewelry printed in materials like silver.

Photo: Magnus Hallgren, Alexander Lervik, Splash/Albert Sanchez/AOP, Shapeways

Alexander Lervik is a veteran in the field and created one of 3D culture's first Swedish signature objects when he had his brain scanned, printed out, and mounted as the lamp "My brain".

English translation of the original article. Text read from the scanned original; small transcription errors may occur.