NASA has create both the geometry and function of a metal fabric through additive manufacturing, or what it calls "4D printing." The armor-like material is made up of squares that reflect light on one side and absorb it on the other, which makes it ideal for passive heat control. The durable and flexible textile could be potentially used as insulation for spacecraft as well as space suits in the future. “I can program new functions into the material I’m printing,” says Raul Polit-Casillas, a systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in a Digital Trends article. “That also reduces the amount of time spent on integration and testing. You can print, test, and destroy material as many times as you want.” [Digital Trends]
Software company Autodesk has released Revit 2018, the latest iteration of its popular BIMsoftware. Features of the new edition include extending the power of global parameters in a model, supporting SAT (ASCII) and Rhino file imports, and the ability to use an Autodesk Navisworks file as an underlay to help non-Revit users track a project. [Autodesk]
In India, the 8,000-year-old body of knowledge vastu shashtra will be introduced at the Indian Institute of Technology, in Kharagpur. Starting in August, undergraduate and graduate students will learn this ancient “science of architecture,” which focuses on design buildings based on its relation to the sun’s light and heat, the wind, the moon’s orientation, and the Earth’s magnetic fields. Because vastu shashtra is the application of natural processes to building design, it has great potential in sustainable design. Many ancient temples across the country have been built using vastu shashtra, whose roots trace back to the Rig Veda sometime between 6000 B.C. and 3000 B.C. [Quartz]
ICMYI: French/Swiss architect Michael Hansmeyer has churned out two 3D-printed grottoes made of sandstone—Grotto I and Grotto II—in an installation so complex that he needed a supercomputer to pull it off. [ARCHITECT]
Baltimore-based Blueprint Robotics is one of a handful of building manufacturing companies that is utilizing robots in the off-site production of new modular structures as well as providing jobs for people with little to no experience in the construction industry. Modular construction methods typically allow for a quick turnarounds and cost efficiencies. Employees at Blueprint use digital tools to upload files onto machines that will then provide step-by-step directions on how to cut, sand, drill, and insulate. [Bloomberg]
ICYMI: "PSAD Synthetic Desert III," a new exhibition by American artist Doug Wheeler at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, in New York, welcomes visitors into a semi-anechoic chamber covered in a sound-absorbing foam. [ARCHITECT]
The American Lung Association has released its annual "State of the Air" report, which reveals measured air-quality results between 2013 and 2015 with a focus on ozone and particle pollution. This year's report reveals Los Angeles has retained the top spot for U.S. city with the worst ozone pollution. The five cleanest cities in terms of particle pollution included Burlington, Vt., Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., and Elmira-Corning, N.Y. [National Geographic]
Ramillea Shah, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering and her Tissue Engineering and Additive Manufacturing (TEAM) Laboratory have discovered a way to use lunar and Martian dust as the base with which to 3D print materials and tools in space. This process could make way for the extraterrestrial production of 3D graphene, carbon nanotubes, and hyperelastic synthetic bones. [TreeHugger]
Call for Entries: The 11th Annual R+D Awards has extended its regular submission date until April 26! Enter your game-changing technologies, products, and projects. [ARCHITECT]
