The walls of your home usually need to be spruced up with paint or some art, but one day they may be teeming with life instead.
Through a new approach to 3D printing, soil implanted with seeds can now be used as a concrete-like building material. Developed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Virginia, this building technique could open up doors to a completely new kind of building, with finely tuned ecosystems of plants and bacteria forming the insulation, the structure, even the exteriors of homes.
“It becomes like a living tissue within your house,” says Ji Ma, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at UVA who led this research, which was recently published in the journal Additive Manufacturing.
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Eric Davis is Automation Alley’s Governance Lead and Analyst. In this role, he helps improve collaboration across the various business units of Automation Alley. Davis also manages the Industry 4.0 Readiness Assessment program, which provides in-depth analysis and insight to help small to medium sized businesses understand how Industry 4.0 will impact them in culture, finance, and technology. Davis also manages the investment process for Automation Alley’s pre-seed fund, which supports companies in Automation Alley’s Industry 4.0 Accelerator. Davis has an extensive background in performing due diligence on public and privately-held companies as the Chief Investment Officer of Revalue, an independent Investment Advisory Firm. Davis also implements icube™, a leadership system designed to help companies reduce human friction and build trust to maximize teamwork & profit.
