Ignite Talk: House 2.0 – The Unlikely Connection Between Open Source Hardware and Silk Wall Paper

by Joseph Flaherty on February 26, 2010

I had a great opportunity to speak at Ignite Boston 7 on how custom manufacturing technology is going to change the way we build. I’ve transcribed my talks and included my slides.

House 2.0 – The Unlikely Connection Between Open Source Hardware and Silk Wall Paper.

Imagine a time where you can back up a house as easily as you would back up a file on Dropbox. This isn’t some far-out, futuristic vision. Computer based construction was used to build the Gilded Age mansions of Newport, Rhode Island.

Photo Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_House

These mansions were built with the highest tech of the age. One interesting example is the opulent purple silk wallpapers in Alva Vanderbilt’s bedroom that were woven with punch card driven looms in the 1890’s.

Photo Credit: http://tickets.newportmansions.org/mansion.aspx?id=1004

With the introduction of income tax and trust busting these mansions or “Cottages by the Sea” fall into disrepair. These great monuments were nearly bulldozed until the Preservation Society of Newport Rhode Island took up their cause and sought to restore them to their glory. Their attention to detail was impressive.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thedepartment/

For instance years of neglect left the purple wall paper faded and yellowed. Instead of having a modern factory try to approximate the furnishings they went back to the original factory in Lyon France that was able to perfectly remanufacture the wallpaper using the exact same materials, dyes, looms, and punch cards nearly 100 years later.

We are entering a world of “Cloud Based Architecture”. Some go even further and say “Atoms are the new bits”. In some ways I think they are over hyping things a bit, but there is a growing trend of the virtual and physical worlds combining.

Many companies have tried to commercialize these technologies. Nike has been pushing custom sneakers for nearly a decade, You can buy a 3D printed version of your WarCraft character, or even order a bound book of your photos. Thanks to MakerBot you can buy a 3D printer for less than a laptop.

The concept is becoming mainstream. Wired has a cover story calling this “A New Industrial Revolution“. People are comparing 3D printing and related technology to the birth of the PC or desktop printing, but the comparison is a little unfair. The complexity of personal manufacturing machines are underestimated.

Software development requires a machine that deals in 1’s and 0’s. Desktop printing machines mix four colors of ink, but a machine producing physical products brings the complexity of the entire periodic table. It will be a while before we can print a basketball on our desks, but there are product categories/markets that are ready to be customized today.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/svenhaiges/4232167373/

One of them is construction or home building. It doesn’t add much material cost to make a building as beautiful as these San Francisco Victorians compared to a generic house of the same size. Artisan labor is the bottle neck. You need a craftsman to turn ordinary materials into beautiful structures.

Photo Credit: http://faculty.smu.edu/dsimon/AAAAAAChange06/Change05/Feb%203/levittown.jpg

That’s why post war construction was so plain. You needed to design houses that can be built by the least skilled workers with only the tools they have on site. This severely limits your design options. Luckily, there is a class of technology coming along that lets us have customized results at mass production prices.

Photo Credit: http://www.npltech.com

These are called Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) tools, which are basically the opposite of 3D printers. They carve shapes out of a block or sheet of material based on CAD data. This provides the flexibility to shape material and the CAD data can be used to provide construction info to the workers.

Photo Credit: http://fearstyle.com/oldStuff/shopbot.jpg

High end systems can cost more than a quarter million dollars, but prices are dropping. This machine is called a ShopBot and can do most of what its larger cousin can, but it is cheap enough for a contractor to own and throw on the back of his truck.

Photo Credit: http://www.pdjinc.com/Steve%20CNC%2002.jpg

For $2000 and a trip to Home Depot you can build your own CNC Mill, with plans from a book called “Build Your Own CNC Machine“. For $200 you can build a mill out of Legos. The important question is what are these machines good for? What can they do?

Photo Credit: http://www.finefinishinc.com/our-projects.html

With these tools you can recreate an Antique English game room. Or a Palladian villa. Or a Baroque mansion. Elements that would have taken an artisan days or weeks can be machined in a factory and assembled on site. Styles no longer have to die with the craftsman that created them.

Photo Credit: http://plusmood.com/2009/12/digitally-fabricated-bookshelf-dbd-studio/comment-page-1/

We aren’t just limited to recreating the past. We can created a brighter future using CAD tools to design forms that would be overly complex for traditional construction methods. This super modern bookcase is a good example. The interaction of software and physical tools opens up new possibilities for creative exploration.

Photo Credit: http://www.aquagladius.com/

These tools are amazing versatile and there are few aspects of a home that can’t be improved with them. They can shape wood, metal, and even stone. This marble floor was made with a water jet cutter which sliced up slabs of marble and then the pieces were assembled like a puzzle.

Photo Credit: http://www.scantech.dk/

They can also create amazing three dimensional elements. Large Marble Lions aren’t just for banks anymore. These machines are in many ways better than 3D printers because they work in a variety of materials and scales.

Photo Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Markham-suburbs_aerial-edit2.jpg

Homes are the biggest investments most of us make and they are in a sorry state. We have lived with little style and low quality for too long. We’ve seen amazing innovations in communication technology over the last decade. Imagine if that ingenuity was applied to the places we live.

We can do better. We can revive ancient designs like the Newport conservators did with Alva Vanderbilt’s purple wall paper. We can use software to literally reshape our homes, neighborhoods, and cities. It just requires the talent of engineers and designers to make it happen.

The are many ways to get involved with this technology, Plenty of open source projects need help. Vendors need your business to grow. If you are at all interested in this technology ReplicatorInc.com is a one stop shop for news and analysis.