The MIT Mediated Matter Group’s 3D glass printer is slowly morphing from a conceptual tool to something designers could use one day.
Design’s wonder material is also one of its most common: glass. Over the years, manufacturers have found ways to improve the fragile material’s physical properties to tune its strength, clarity, and form. Artisans can blow glass into brilliant sculptures. Mass production gave rise to intricate pressed glass. Sheets of glass for super-tall skyscrapers can be more than 22 feet wide, thanks to nanotechnology. And the fabrication techniques are becoming more advanced, still.