Beautiful Star Lounge is one of the world’s biggest 3D-printed PLA structures

3D printing company Emerging Objects teamed up with Bold Machines to create the Star Lounge, one of the world’s largest PLA-based 3D-printed structures.

The freestanding 8.5-foot-tall Star Lounge comprises 2,073 hexagonal 3D-printed blocks riveted together to form a beautiful star-patterned structure. What’s particularly impressive is the team’s use of the MakerBot Replicator 2 to show off the technology’s relatively affordable and accessible architectural potential.

Emerging Objects and Bold Machines fabricated the 121-square-foot Star Lounge using a ‘BotFarm’ that comprised over 100 3D printers. Each printer could 3D print two blocks without support material in just over an hour. The designers created 28 different block types; each type was printed a different translucent color for easy identification. Every block also had a number printed on its interior surface to make the assembly easier. The designers riveted the blocks together to form the Star Lounge’s doubly curved dome structure and its playful decorative patterns.

“The ability to create lightweight structures with affordable desktop printers is a game changer for making architecture and interiors,” said Emerging Objects co-Founder, Virginia San Fratello. The Emerging Object team—Ronald Rael, Virginia San Fratello, and Mona Ghandi—designed the structure in their Oakland studio. Bold Machines printed and assembled the Star Lounge in their Brooklyn headquarters.