Deep Façade
Students at ETH Zurich designed and built a 11.5-ft. aluminum wall cast in a 3D-printed mold.
February 2019 - Designed and built in 2018 by the students of the MAS Digital Fabrication at ETH Zurich, Deep Façade is a 3.5m-tall (11.5-ft.) aluminum wall cast in a 3D-printed mold, the first of its kind. Last year’s MAS Digital Fabrication course addressed the design of a contemporary facade cast in metal, investigating the synergy between the geometric freedom offered by 3D printing and the tectonic logic of metal casting.
Students developed custom design tools to generate an algorithmic ornamental structure. The design of this structure plays with varying transparencies depending on the point of view and a graded filter of daylight, while integrating structural and fabrication constraints. The installation consists of 26 custom panels, articulated and assembled in three dimensions.
Photo: Jetana Ruangjun / ETH Zurich
