Campers are cool and all, but they’re almost always too bulky for off-road travel, and they guzzle a lot of gas. But what if you could fit all the bells and whistles of a well-appointed RV into a compact camper van, including a bathroom with a shower? German manufacturer Hymer claims they’ve designed the camper van of the future in “VisionVenture,” a concept built on a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter chassis.

Hymer says they got pretty much all their ideas for slick upgrades seen in this concept by keeping a close eye on the #vanlife community and seeing how they modify their own vehicles and what they have wished for. They basically took that wish list and satisfied virtually every item on it.

With four wheel drive for off-road use, the van features selected body parts produced using 3D printing technology for durability and precision along with infrared-reflective paint. A pneumatic pop-top roof offers a comfortable place to sleep, freeing up the cabin for lounging, cooking and storing belongings.

Envisioned as a mobile luxury apartment for the year 2025, the VisionVenture is outfitted with bamboo, gray felt and leather, a rear patio with a BBQ, a generous amount of kitchen space and a transforming bathroom with rolling wall and a vanity sink that rotates to offer a rain shower.

“3D-printing, infrared-reflective paint, roof and rear patio with BBQ and pneumatic pop-top roof: developed in collaboration with BASF, the Mercedes-Benz-based concept vehicle VisionVenture breaks new ground in terms of design, self-sufficiency and lightweight construction. The concept car offers a foretaste of what modern travel could be like in 2025. It combines the pioneering spirit and innovation of Hymer with more than 20 innovative materials from BASF in order to offer a forward-looking response to current and future industry trends.”

“Also new is the ultra-resilient paintwork in striking dark green: the temperature-regulating, energy-efficient Chromacool technology from BASF reduces the surface temperature of the vehicle by 20°C and that of the interior by up to 4°C. It also allows a more individual look, offering an alternative to the classic white.”

Though it’s still just a concept, it’s a particularly exciting one for anyone who loves taking road trips in comfort and style.

In an unnamed city somewhere in South America, construction is set to begin on a 3D-printed village designed specifically for families living on less than $200 per month. San Francisco-based design studio Fuseproject is collaborating with New Story, a non-profit organization fighting homelessness, and ICON, a construction technologies company to plan and build what they call “the world’s first 3D-printed community.”

“It is our belief that designers, builders and technology innovators have the potential to bring unprecedented speed and scale to housing design that can elevate the lives of some of the most impoverished populations around the globe. 3D printing, in particular, offers a new and powerful tool for realizing this potential and driving this mission forward. We will deliver this  groundbreaking method of homebuilding to families in Latin America who need affordable housing that adapts to their day-to-day lives.”

“We worked directly with the communities that we were designing for to learn more about their culture and environment to ensure that we were providing options that respond to their housing needs in ways that extended beyond single traditional home design. We used 3D technology and the unique design possibilities it enables to provide solutions that addressed important questions related to climate, family structure and the role that the homes play in creating a larger community.”

When finished later this year, the community will house more than 400 individuals. Residents will be able to personalize their homes, including the layout, number of bedrooms and color of the exterior. They’re being offered zero-interest loans, and amount they pay will vary depending on their income, with that money going into a shared fund to pay for other community resources.

It’s definitely achievable. ICON has already proven the concept with the first 3D-printed home in America using a combination of robotics, software and a cement-based mixture that can be extruded easily, bonds well between layers and hardens quickly. This proprietary mix called “Lavacrete II” has a compressive strength of 6,000 psi, which is well above the strength of existing building materials, as well as high thermal mass and the ability to withstand extreme weather conditions to minimize the impact of natural disasters. Combined with 3D printing technology, it enables rapid build times at a lower overall cost.

Why should architecture continue to look, feel and function almost exactly as it always has, in spite of a dramatically changing world? Sticking to established conventions is often the easy and inexpensive way to do things, and it’s backed up by decades or centuries of practice. But as we move into a future of climate crisis and other challenges, perhaps it’s time to be bold.

Experimental architecture explores new paths and imagines new ways to meet the needs and challenges of humans in relation to the natural world. It’s not easy to break out of our assumptions about what we think architecture should be; radical new paths often don’t seem possible until we see them in action. Visionary architects and designers make the abstract into reality when they not only conceptualize extraordinary new ways of sheltering ourselves, but test them out in the real world, even on a small scale.

Breaking out of conventions might mean changing how we use our built environments, how they’re oriented, what they’re made of, their shapes or how they’re put together. After a while, if it’s successful, the experimental can become conventional, asking to be questioned and bucked and broken again in favor of something tailored to emerging circumstances. It never stops evolving.

Experimental Shapes & Materials

Reducing waste and pollution should be a major objective of architecture from this point forward, and that might mean shifting away from current construction norms altogether. What if all new buildings were made out of things like super-strong renewable wood, fungus-based self-healing concrete, nano cellulose made of waste materials and 3D-printed sandstone? Bendable concrete, water-saving bricks, cement that absorbs CO2 out of the atmosphere: all of this is possible and more. The ‘Concrete Vessel’ home pictured above, by Atelier FCJZ, features translucent glass fiber reinforced concrete made from recycled construction debris.

Some of the most impressive examples of experimental shapes and materials in architecture result from biomimicry, examining how nature’s forms and processes can help us develop more effective, efficient (and often more beautiful) structures. We see this in Singapore’s spectacular solar-powered Supertrees, a mechanical forest of vertical gardens, rainwater collection systems and conservatories that could theoretically also contain shops, restaurants or housing.

The University of Stuttgart’s carbon fiber pavilions are another striking example, inspired by the lightweight shell encasing the wings and abdomen of a beetle. Woven by robots, the pavilions are able to achieve highly unusual proportions, and they’re unusually strong. Imagine if we built custom structures like this and covered the surfaces with protective membranes to make them into walls and ceilings.

Experimental Construction Methods

Robots will continue to transform the construction industry in the near future, whether they’re building prefabricated load-bearing timber modules, undulating brick walls or 3D-printed fiber composites based on the behavior of spiders and silkworms. Robots can set building materials into place with unprecedented precision, achieve complex geometries and eliminate the need for waste-producing concrete molds.

Another bold move toward truly sustainable architecture is the Design for Disassembly (DfD, or Design for Deconstruction) movement, which considers and plans for the entire life cycle of a structure before it’s built in the name of adaptability and waste reduction. Ways to reuse or recycle every component of a structure using existing recycling streams are built into the designs, which are typically pre-fabricated, pre-assembled and/or modular. Closed-loop construction systems encourage innovation and produce unique aesthetics, as seen in Kieran Timberlake’s Cellophane House and Kengo Kuma’s Cafe Kureon.

Experimental Usage

Conventional architecture is nearly always distressingly ableist. Designed around the needs of a hypothetically “normal” person, it fails to address the reality of diverse bodies and abilities. Accessible architecture and interior design shouldn’t be “experimental,” it should already be a core element of every design, but alas, here we are. Architects can help the world catch up by adhering to the principles of Universal Design, serving as many people as possible without segregating those with different needs and working directly with people who are most impacted by inaccessible structures. The Universal Design Living Laboratory, the top-rated universal design home in North America, offers one example of what this can look like.

Other forms of user-centered design might center upon a social element, like Soar Design Studio’s residence converted to a communal space for local students, or the so-called “dementia villages” granting patients a degree of freedom and community they don’t experience in a typical nursing home setting. Experimental structures might also be placed in unexpected settings to expand access to housing in overcrowded cities, like Matthew Chamberlain’s “street tree pods.”

Top image: robot-built metallic structures by Prix

Not many sushis restaurants ask their patrons to provide urine and saliva samples upon entrance, but in our era of hyper-personalization, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. From the Japanese company Open Meals, which debuted its complex 3D-printed sushi at the South by Southwest festival in Austin last year, comes a new range of high tech food that’s tailored specifically to the nutritional needs of its diners.

Set to launch in Tokyo next year, “Sushi Singularity” relies on a system of 3D printers, CNC routers, lasers, robotic arms and other components most often associated with industrial design to produce edible sculptures made of sushi ingredients. In each item on the menu, you’ll find common sushi elements like tuna, squid, eel and seaweed, but it’ll be in a form you’ve never seen before.

In order to mix each custom cocktail of nutrients in an aesthetically pleasing way through its machinery, Open Meals transforms each ingredient into a gel or paste. Menu items include “micro pillar saltwater eel,” “oze tick kappa roll,” “dash soup universe,” “anisotropic stiffness steamed shrimp,” “negative stiffness honeycomb octopus,” “cell cultured tuna,” “powdered sintered uni” and “squid castle.” When customers make a reservation, it’ll trigger the system to automatically send them a biodata kit in the mail, which requests urine, saliva and stool samples. The results will determine the exact creations you’re ultimately served when you arrive.

Here’s how they describe their process:

“Food Ingredient Cartridges: These will contain sustainable food ingredients such as seaweed and crickets, which are mixed with water, fiber, and enzymes for output. Nutrient Cylinders: 11 types of nutrients in cylindrical cartridges. Foods will be nutritionally optimized based on a Health ID. Alginate Fermenter: Produces spherical food in a chemical reaction between sodium alginate and calcium solution. Artificial light farm: Cultivates fresh vegetables in enclosed spaces through use of artificial light such as LEDs. Hot Water FDM: Items that cannot be formed at room temperature or in air can be realized by outputting them in hot water.”

“SLS: Laser Sintered 3D Printer. Powder-based raw materials are baked into specific shapes using lasers. FFM Control Interface: The brain of the entire machine, which combines various data to design and hyper-personalize food. Laser FDM: Thermolysis Laminated 3D Printer. The raw material is melted by heat and formed by stacking layers. Robot arm: The unit is equipped with an ultra-high precision arm. Chilled FDM: Outputs at ultra low temperatures to realize shapes impossible at room temperature. 6-axis CNC router: Cuts the material with a multi-axis router, enabling precise, elaborate modeling. Fermenter: Cultivates food ingredients in real time through precise management of water temperature and nutrients.”

Whether or not any of this actually sounds appetizing to you, the final result is certainly artistic, and perhaps a signal of what’s to come to the world of food in the near future as this kind of technology grows more accessible.

Citizens of Thessaloniki, Greece can bring their plastic household waste to a “zero waste lab,” use software to design their own custom recycled street furniture and watch it take form via 3D printer. The project is the latest from “Print Your City,” a creative initiative by Dutch research and design studio The New Raw that combines DIY urbanism interventions with smart use of freely available materials.

The team hopes to create circular waste streams within the city, engaging local residents in the process and enhancing public spaces at the same time. Print Your City takes municipal plastic waste, grinds it up into pellets or flakes and feeds it into 3D printers to produce street furniture that’s extremely tough and durable.

With this project, the power to shape the looks and functionality of public furniture is in the hands of the people who will be using it – a concept that could be extended to all sorts of endeavors to contribute to a more equitable world. Residents turned furniture designers can come up with virtually any shape or color they want, add features like built-in planters or bike racks and decide where their creation should be placed.

The New Raw’s initial prototype for the Thessaloniki project was a half bench, half planter that required about 100kg of plastic waste to create, noting that the average EU citizen generates about 31kg each year. A bunch of the prototypes were placed around Thessaloniki’s Nea Paralia waterfront promenade to gauge public interest and the city responded with over 3,000 user-submitted designs, some of which will begin to appear in the city’s Hanth Park this month.

“Plastic has a design failure,” says Print Your City founders Panos Sakkas and Foteini Setaki. “It is designed to last forever, but often we use it once and throw it away. With Print Your City, we endeavor to show a better way of using plastic in long lasting and high value applications.”