Additive manufacturing: with 3DPlastLab the future is now

The first edition of 3DPlastLab, the format dedicated to innovation in additive manufacturing hosted within Plast 2026, which for four days brought together researchers, designers, start-ups, universities and companies from several countries, concluded as one of the most visited exhibition areas of the Milan trade fair. The concept – fostering dialogue between research, industry and design through prototypes and direct exchanges with innovators – placed ideas at the centre even before technologies.

3DPlastLab emerged from the renewed identity of 3D Plast, the result of the collaboration between Promaplast, organiser of Plast, and Simone Maccagnan, Business Development Manager at Gimac and CEO and founder of eXgineering, and was developed, designed and coordinated by Pierpaolo Ruttico, founder and Managing Director of Indexlab, the digital fabrication laboratory at Politecnico di Milano.

“The objective of 3DPlastLab was not simply to create a space dedicated to 3D printing, but to build a meeting place for people, expertise and different visions united by the desire to innovate,” commented Simone Maccagnan. “We believe that innovation flourishes when research, industry, design and academia come together. 3DPlastLab was created to foster these connections, accelerate the sector's technological development and generate new business opportunities for the entire additive manufacturing ecosystem.”

The common thread linking the researchers and companies hosted by 3DPlastLab is a paradigm shift: additive manufacturing is no longer concerned solely with controlling the shape of objects, but also with the very nature of the material from which they are made, making it designable, sustainable and even "intelligent". This is clearly illustrated by a reinvention of nature itself. The new generation of entirely plant-based, 3D-printable composites developed by Marinella Levi (Politecnico di Milano, +LAB) has led to a remarkable alternative to leather – a plant-based "crocodile skin" made from agar-agar and cork – alongside fibre-reinforced thermoset composites that have already reached industrial maturity, from which the spin-offs MOI Composites and MOI Dental originated. Also inspired by the plant world is the transparent wood developed within the AI-TW project: Giulio Malucelli (Politecnico di Torino, DISAT) is responsible for its technical core, removing or modifying lignin and infiltrating the wood with transparent polymers to obtain a material that transmits light, provides thermal insulation and could replace glass, with artificial intelligence predicting its behaviour and accelerating its scalability, while Beatrice Lerma and Doriana Dal Palù (Politecnico di Torino, DAD) explore its perceptual and design dimensions, investigating how both the public and professionals envisage its use in architecture, interior design and sustainable mobility.

From nature to waste transformed into a resource. Elena Casolari (Politecnico di Milano) converts heterogeneous plastics from end-of-life vehicles – normally destined for downcycling – into reliable construction products; Giulia Pelliccia (SDU Create, University of Southern Denmark), through the Laygrade project, transforms sawdust, resin and beeswax into graded biocomposites capable of varying their optical and mechanical properties point by point for architectural components designed to modulate light.

The final step is that of materials becoming functional and programmable. Kostas Grigoriadis (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL) designs multi-material façades in which structural, solar and ventilation performance is directly embedded into the voxel distribution of the material, eliminating many mechanical systems. Serena Graziosi (Politecnico di Milano) derives printable bioactive composites from food industry by-products, shaping them into wearable pads customised to provide non-invasive relief from breast pain. Jochen Mueller (Johns Hopkins University) extends the same concept down to the micron scale, printing elastic films only 18 microns thick within complex devices, ranging from origami structures to electro-active actuators for soft robotics.

Finally, Hayden Taylor (UC Berkeley) completes the picture by proposing a radical paradigm shift away from conventional layer-by-layer 3D printing through Computed Axial Lithography (CAL), a technique that adapts the principles of computed tomography to additive manufacturing. An optimised set of light patterns is projected through a rotating volume of photopolymer, while the absorbed dose accumulates volumetrically until the complete three-dimensional object is formed within minutes, without the need for support structures.

The Call for Ideas confirmed the format's vocation not only to showcase innovation, but also to bring it to the fore. Open to students, researchers, designers and young innovators, it led to the selection of four winning concepts, all united by a bio-inspired approach: OsteoGyroid, by William Solórzano-Requejo, a hip prosthesis featuring gradient porosity inspired by the human femur; Topo IV Disc, by Alejandro de Blas de Miguel, William Solórzano-Requejo, Francisco Franco Martínez and Andrés Díaz Lantada, a lattice-structured intervertebral disc designed for more biocompatible spinal implants; Nature Trace #00, by Payvand Azadmanesh and Milan Dragojlovic, which translates natural growth processes into lightweight structures with high material efficiency; and Alpha EEG Headset, by Chrystal Bryant, a next-generation device for monitoring brain activity. The projects were manufactured during Plast 2026, brought to life through the advanced additive manufacturing systems made available by X-Engineering and 3DHub Ferba, companies specialising in the industrial 3D printing of complex components.

Making the 3DPlastLab experience even more immersive was the sound installation conceived by sound designer Marco Bordini. Through a four-channel electroacoustic composition, the productive and human identity of the organisations involved was transformed into an artistic experience accompanying visitors throughout the exhibition. Machinery, materials, production environments and voices were recorded, analysed and reworked using granular, spectral and sample-based synthesis techniques, giving rise to an immersive soundtrack distributed across four independent audio channels. The result was a three-dimensional listening experience that transformed elements of everyday industrial life into narrative material, reinforcing the dialogue between technology, creativity and the human dimension.