Your eyes are not deceiving you: The Silk Pavillion — an architectural experiment constructed at MIT, was “3-D printed” using 6,500 live silkworms.
Media Lab professor Neri Oxman and her team call the hybrid fabrication method CNSilk. The project started with experiments to see if the spinning patterns of the silkworms could be controlled by altering the environment they operated in. It turns out they could. An aluminum and string frame was hung in an atrium at MIT and thousands of silkworms were released on it. They swarmed over the structure’s surface and spun silk threads that ultimately created a dome.
The concept of using silkworms for structural engineering, however strange, has a number of benefits. Most 3-D printers today would have difficulty printing something larger than the steering wheel of a car, but with a little help, these “MakerBugs” can build structures the size of small houses. The process is as environmentally friendly as it could possibly be — the worms transform White Mulberry leaves into building material, their creations biodegrade over time, and when the job is done the worms turn into moths and fly away, leaving enough eggs behind to create approximately 250 more structures.
Potential applications are varied, but include fashion and architecture, and it’s possible to imagine a system like this being deployed in the aftermath of a natural disaster to build environmentally friendly shelters for refugees.
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