Designs by Faculty on Display at Expo 2023 Doha

Smart blocks have unique shapes that cannot be fabricated with traditional methods.

Smart Block, a digital fabrication project exploring the potential of large scale clay 3D printing, is on display as part of Expo 2023 Doha. 

The project is supported by a VCUarts Qatar Faculty Research Grant.

The two prototype Smart Block screens are inspired by the translucent partitions of Italian rural houses and by local Masharabiya. 

They can be used to protect gardens, courtyards and orchards from the sun and the wind. The permeability of each screen can be controlled by modifying the shape of the single blocks and the density of the composition.

To better control the amount of lights that goes through the elements, the Smart Blocks vary in depth. To achieve this variation the designers, which include VCUarts Qatar faculty, developed a production system that allows to control locally the amount of material extruded, generating layers with variable heights. The resulting texture becomes an ornamental feature that is coherent with both the fabrication method and its geometrical form.

Smart blocks have unique shapes that cannot be fabricated with traditional methods. They can be used to build one of a kind architectural screens, brise-soleil or Masharabiya.

Smart Block is collaboration between VCUarts Qatar professors Marco Bruno and Simone Carena; along with Alessandro Zomparelli, who is a member of Co-de-iT, a hub for transdisciplinary research, consultancy, and education in computational design in Milan, Italy; and Bruno Demasi, a digital ceramist and the founder of Clay-Code in Turin, Italy. 

Photographs by Raviv Cohen