"The Shape to Fabrication AEC conference has a focus on cutting-edge technology and innovative construction with applications in architecture, engineering and design. Our speakers are shaping the future, working at the intersection of technology and design innovation, unafraid to push technology and engineering to new heights."
– Shape to Fabrication

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On occasion of the 2025 iteration of the tri-annual event taking place at London's University of Westminster, Timo Harboe Zollner (of Timo Harboe ApS) and Philip Schneider (of Scawo3D and Skeno GbR), presented Scawo3D's newly developed 3DStairDesigner among a wide range of presenters such as Studio Heatherwick, Foster + Partners, KPF and many more.

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Building large-scale freeform reinforced concrete staircases has always been a challenge. Traditional methods rely on labour-intensive wooden or EPS formwork, making many designs too costly. This can be changed with Selective Paste Intrusion (SPI), a new 3D concrete printing technique developed by Scawo3D using a large particle-bed and the geometric freedom that comes with it.

With fabrication no longer restricting the geometry, the computational design process became the bottleneck. Our previous AutoCAD-based solution - initially developed for producing G-codes for CNC-milling EPS formwork blocks - was not viable for the freedom of particle bed 3D printing. Manual 3D modeling rendered scaling up production impossible, leaving the printer underused. To solve this, together with Timo Harboe Zollner, we developed an automated workflow that cuts the time from design to production by 95%. This approach balances automation with intuitive user input, transforming 2D geometry into finely detailed 3D models in minutes. It integrates SubDs, meshes, volumetric modeling, and implicit modeling, achieving in moments what once took days.

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Photos by Dan Law.