How 3-D Printed Glass Could Lead to Some Wild Architecture | WIRED

THE BIG QUESTION that’s nagged 3-D printing from the start is just what is the technology good for, anyway? It’s been asked of every new material touted by enthusiasts of the tool, from plastic to metal to wax. And now, glass. 

Neri Oxman and her team at the MIT Media Lab’s Mediated Matter Group, along with the MIT Glass Lab and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, recently unveiled G3DP, a 3-D printer for glass. The machine, the first of its kind, heats glass to more than 1,900 degrees Fahrenheit in a kiln, then extrudes it through an aluminum nozzle. In the gif below, you see translucent goo piped out of a nozzle and drizzled like honey before crystallizing into a ribbed structure. It’s hypnotic, even beautiful.