Branch Technology 3-D prints architecture in open space
Thinking about innovation in Chattanooga, it’s easy for me to get lost in context. How does being in this place nurture this company? How does it work, this set of concrete relationships and abstract power dynamics that we call an entrepreneurial ecosystem? What does having and cultivating this new set of startups mean for the community?
But the yin to this yang—the “other half” that can be separated from the other in the abstract but is actually one aspect of a single thing—is the uniquely personal vision that a company grows around.
Branch founder Platt Boyd’s vision was to change how architectural designs are interpreted in physical space by putting the extrusion nozzle of a 3-D printer—the part that squirts hot plastic—on the end of a giant industrial robotic arm normally used for welding. He then made it build a 3-D object that is neither solid nor hollow, but that is “translated” into a geometric lattice of triangles.
“We’re asking what if you could build like nature?” says Boyd. “Instead of layer-by-layer 3-D printing, which is typical, it is freeform—it solidifies in open space. Our algorithms create the internal geometry and drive the robot.”
The end result, printed from carbon fiber reinforced ABS plastic, is already strong and light. For example, a 28-ounce piece of plastic lattice can hold up to 3,000 pounds. When it is filled with conventional spray foam, it supports up to 6,000 pound, about three times the strength of regular construction, according to Boyd. Finished pieces become even stronger when finished with layers of gypsum on the interior and concrete stucco on the exterior.
The company uses what it calls “cellular fabrication” to break larger designs into modular pieces that can be shipped, reassembled and finished on-site. The printer itself is a 12.5-foot robotic arm on 33-foot track.
“It ends up being the largest freeform 3-D printer in world,” says Boyd. “We didn’t plan it that way. We just said we need a big old robot.”
Boyd was an architect for 15 years based in Montgomery, Alabama when he saw the potential of 3-D printing. He left architecture to develop this idea, went through Gig Tank in 2015, and relocated to Chattanooga to build his company.
“Each building is unique and custom, but the way we’ve been producing them is by taking sheet goods or beams and we cut out or carve out of those things to make this custom thing and then we typically throw away the rest,” says Boyd. “It creates a huge waste stream: 36 percent of all waste headed to landfills comes from construction. About $30 billion of wasted materials are put into the waste stream per year in the U.S.”
Coverage in business and design media of Boyd’s first prototypes was overwhelmingly positive. But it didn’t prepare him for the response when the company announced a competition to design the world’s first freeform 3-D printed house and Branch’s first load-bearing structure: 1,300 registrations from 97 countries.
“For a five-person startup in Chattanooga, that’s phenomenal,” Boyd says. “We announced it to the top 50 design schools and the top 60 to 70 architecture firms in the U.S., but it went all over the world. It’s also been published in a number of publications, with a readership of about 150 million per month.”
The winning design, announced last summer, was created by the Chicago office of WATG Urban Architecture Studio, the number-two hospitality design firm in the world. The one-bedroom house will be 3-D printed at Branch Technology’s production facility in the North Chattanooga INCubator starting in 2017 and assembled on-site in Chattanooga.
“It will be the first 3-D printed house in the nation and the first freeform 3-D printed house in the world,” says Boyd.
Rich Bailey is a writer, editor, and PR consultant. He led a project to create Chattanooga’s first civic website in 1995 before even owning a modem. Now he covers Chattanooga technology for The Pulse and blogs about it at CircleChattanooga.com