Binder jet 3D printing turns stone waste from quarries and demolition into load-bearing building elements, printed without moulds or formwork.
Extracting and processing stone leaves behind large volumes of fines and offcuts; in many marble quarries, the waste is almost as large as the stone that is sold. This research uses that residue as the raw material of a digital fabrication process. A thin layer of stone powder is spread and selectively bound, layer by layer, while the unbound powder supports the part and is reused. Because no mould is needed, every element can have its own geometry, hollow interior and surface at no additional cost, and material can be placed only where the structure needs it.
The research covers the entire chain: large-scale printers developed and built at the Chair, control software, and material systems, with some components developed in collaboration with the Chair of Sustainable Construction at ETH Zurich. These are adapted to different stones, from marble to granite, and to the whole range of quarry waste, from coarse aggregate to fine powder. It started as a doctorate, 3D Printing Architecture – Open Framework for Binder Jetting in Construction (2024), and has since been tested at architectural scale: with Arzo at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023, made from waste of a marble quarry, and with Anti-Ruin at the Biennale 2025, a demountable gate of twelve printed blocks assembled without mortar.
The research is carried out in collaboration with SUPSI and the industry partners KIBAG and Edilgroup, using stone waste provided by Lasa Marmo and Giannini Graniti. It has been supported by Innosuisse, an SNSF BRIDGE Proof of Concept grant and the EIC Pathfinder project ROBOTOMY. With the BRIDGE project, the technology is being prepared for transfer into the spin-off 3DSP – 3D Stone Printing.
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