A Narrative Experience In A Patchwork City

Recently we stumbled upon this stunning 1:200 patchwork of a city that Dutch architecture student Arne Lijbers created at the Waag Society fab lab in Amsterdam. Lijbers used only three ingredients — cardboard, glue and a laser cutter. He says it took him a month to build his imaginary city, but the result is great. Click here for more photos of Lijbers’s graduation project.

Fab labs are on the rise, popping up in cities all around the world. The first fab lab, an initiative by the MIT in collaboration with the Grassroots Invention Group and the Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA), opened doors in the 1990s. By June 2008, there were already 34 fab labs in the world, spread across 10 countries. Fab labs are particularly interesting for people who want to create a custom-made item or test a new idea.

Fab labs greatly contribute to a future in which 3D printers play a decisive role in our daily lives. The creation of final products using 3D printers is growing, and researchers are actively working on improving the technology. The Freeform Production Project, for instance, already prints ‘big things’ and paves the way for 3D printing of full-scale building components. Want to read more about 3D printing and its future? Last September we published an interview with ProtoSpace Lab founder Joris van Tubergen that’s definitely worth checking out.

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