From Additive Manufacturing to 3D/4D Printing 1

Introduction

“The emerging potential for using 3D printing is illuminating some of the inefficiencies in mass production: the stockpiling of components and parts, the large amount of working capital required for such stockpiling, profligate waste of materials, and of course the expense of employing large numbers of people… It continues and accelerates a longer-term trend towards de-dematerialization of manufacturing goods – a trend that has already kept the total tonnage of global goods constant over the past half century, even as their value has increased more than three-fold”. [GOR 13, TAY 14]

“You need have a lot of ideas to have good ones”. ([PAU 14], quoted by [BRY 14])

“This could be called the Sirius paradox: it is futile to remain outside reality and to cultivate a haughty view certain of a good analysis. However, upon drawing too close to reality, it becomes even denser and seems to saturate the horizon of micromeanings that end up clouding our eyes and making any analysis impossible”. [MEI 14]

“There are also artificial fogs that we take to be fortifications; they constitute the primary obstacles, for they set up a barrier at the very root of any process of alternative imagination”. [VIV 12]

“All progress in speed is celebrated by the media as a success and adopted as such by the public, but experience shows that the more time we gain, the less we have. The faster we go, the more hassled we are”. [ELL 88]

“Researchers’ imaginations coupled with smart capitalism has ...