Landscape architects will need to consider

3D printing?s carbon footprint.
By Timothy A. Schuler
Lindsey Heller examines one of several finishes applied to 3D-printed prototypes. Photo by Joey Neff, Local 528.
Lindsey Heller sees a lot of potential for 3D printing in landscape architecture. ?I don?t know how you couldn?t be excited about this technology,? she says. Heller, a longtime principal at Land Morphology, recently founded her own firm, SKAPA, in Seattle. ?As a designer having close to 25 years of [experience in] landscape construction, there are a lot of questions I feel like I could answer using this technology.?
As just one example, Heller pulled up a photo of a stormwater planter, the kind increasingly required on small sites by Seattle?s stringent stormwater code, that she printed. ?We used bagged QUIKRETE from Home Depot and bottled water. Within three hours, I had designed, modeled, and printed a stormwater feature where not a single radius or vertical [was] the same,? she says. Heller points out that the technology allows her to use less material, and that further technological advances in printing substrates could lead to less carbon-intensive construction. Meg Calkins, FASLA, who is researching 3D printing for a forthcoming book on materials and carbon, says the environmental claims of 3D printing need to be scrutinized. In non-3D-printed applications, the percentage of Portland cement?the biggest contributor to concrete?s sizable carbon footprint?has stea...