Printing Visions – Shaping the Future

Printing Visions – Shaping the Future
How we can use robotics to harness local resources and rethink global systems
Ada Matthes
Product Designer (B.A.), specialized in robotic fabrication, sustainable materials, and speculative design.

Introduction

Designers, engineers, biologists, scientists of all disciplines — we all research and create to change the world, piece by piece. But in which direction do we want that change to go?

With the rise of 3D printing comes the potential to rethink mass production — moving away from centralized, industrial systems toward decentralized, adaptive models, where local resources, waste materials, and digital tools work together in symbiosis.

The star of this vision is a small 3D-printed stool called Galoppi — made from recycled polypropylene reinforced with glass fibers, printed in about three hours by a six-axis industrial robot.

Galoppi is more than an object; it is a demonstrator for the future of making — for adaptive, local, circular, and emotionally resonant production methods.

From Bentwood to Robot Arms – How Chairs Tell the Story of Production

What can chairs teach us about engineering and manufacturing?

From the Gothic folding chair as a symbol of power and mobility, to Thonet’s No. 14, which introduced industrial mass production with bentwood and steam technology, to Bauhaus designs like the tubular steel Freischwinger, which embodied functionality, modularity, and rationality — every era formed its own idea of progress.

In the 20th century, chairs became icons of industrial modernity: mass-produced, standardized, globally available. With the advent of plastics, this development reached its peak — light, cheap, infinitely replicable. Yet the Monobloc chair, once celebrated as democratic design, turned into a symbol of linear, wasteful production logic.

Today, Galoppi — a 3D-printed stool made from recycled polypropylene — marks a new chapter.
It shows how design, robotics, and material research can merge to activate local resources, shorten supply chains, and produce objects only when they are truly needed.

The story of the chair is not just about sitting — it is about rethinking progress, from craftsmanship to industry, and now toward adaptive, circular fabrication.

3D Printing as the Craft of Our Time

3D printing is digital craftsmanship — a bridge between industrial precision and individual expression.
Every design begins digitally and is parametric: dimensions, shapes, and proportions can be adjusted in seconds.

This parametric approach enables print-on-demand: products are made only when they are needed. The robot prints only when an order exists. This saves transport, storage, and energy — but most importantly, it redefines the relationship between people and objects.

Something made specifically for us is something we keep longer — a principle known in design as emotional sustainability.

Circular Design – Closing Loops Instead of Creating Waste

Galoppi is designed to be circular. The material can be shredded, reprocessed, and reused.
This creates a closed material loop, transferable to many other resources: from concrete, wood, and clay to bio-based materials like mycelium.

Mycelium — the root network of fungi — is a living example of symbiosis between nature and technology. It grows on waste, is biodegradable, and can be shaped into strong structures.

Circular design means understanding resources as part of living systems — as material flows that are constantly in motion.

Decentralized Production – Global Impact

One Galoppi was produced in Brandenburg, another in Munich. Whether in Italy or Australia — the object itself doesn’t travel, only the digital file does.

This approach makes production more flexible, resilient, and independent of global supply chains.
With companies like Ginger Additives in Milan, developing large-scale pellet extrusion systems, this vision becomes tangible.

Pellet extrusion replaces costly filament, reduces CO₂, and allows the use of local recycled materials.
Through this, technology becomes democratized — robotics becomes accessible, even for small studios and workshops.

Solarpunk – Imagining an Optimistic Future

Technology alone doesn’t create the future.
We must decide which direction it should take.

Our present oscillates between two visions: Cyberpunk, the dystopian, technocratic future — and Solarpunk, a movement imagining a positive, cooperative world.

Solarpunk merges technological innovation with ecological responsibility.
It stands for design in harmony with nature — for systems that are regenerative rather than destructive.

3D printing and robotics can become tools of this future, if we use them to strengthen local economies and circular processes.

Collaboration as the Key – The “Krebs Cycle of Creativity”

To shape such a future, we must connect disciplines.
Designers, engineers, and scientists often speak different languages — yet true innovation emerges where they meet.

Neri Oxman describes this as the “Krebs Cycle of Creativity” — a model where art, design, science, and engineering flow into one another in a continuous cycle.

This idea symbolizes the essential task of our time:
Cooperation instead of competition.
We don’t have to destroy systems — we can gently redirect them by understanding existing structures, working with them, and transforming them symbiotically.

Conclusion

Additive manufacturing and robotics show how design can become a tool for social transformation — activating local resources, rethinking global systems, and creating a decentralized, sustainable, and resilient future.

A future in which we design with and for nature, not against it.

Galoppi may wobble — but it stands firmly on the legs of a vision.