PoolbarThe 3D printer makes music to touch

The story of this extraordinary award begins in February 2019 at the Poolbar Generator. For many years, different laboratories - from architecture to street art to product design - have been ensuring creative excellence in the run-up to the iconic music festival in Feldkirch. The results subsequently enrich the festival, which starts in July. The labs are led by professionals. Young creatives, mostly students, can apply to participate.

Cooperation with 1zu1

The management of the Poolbar Generator has been in cooperation with the Dornbirn-based 3D printing specialist 1zu1 since 2015. "1zu1 is a leader in 3D printing and thus offers the ideal implementation possibilities for the unusual ideas that arise in the lab," says Marie Nemeth, head of the product design lab. "There are no limits to creativity. The visions can be realized quickly and without any tools at all, starting with quantity 1," adds her manager colleague Silvia Stocker.

"For the Poolbar Festival, the collaboration with 1zu1 is a stroke of luck: Not only does it open up a world of unimagined design possibilities for the creative minds at the Poolbar Generator, but it also enables optimizing correction runs in the shortest possible time thanks to the flexibility of the technology," says Herwig Bauer, founder and managing director of the Poolbar Festival. 3D printing is generating excitement: "The people involved are not just doing a job. They tinker with the best solutions with fervour and mutual respect. The tangible results ennoble the Poolbar Festival every year," Bauer is convinced.

In 2017, for example, a bar lamp was created in which the appearance is changed by breaking out parts and an underlying layer with texts becomes visible. The spiral lamp from the same year was designed as a two-dimensional surface, printed and then formed into volumes. In 2018, the lab surprised with "Wavetiles" as a decorative element for the counter. For this, concrete was molded into the desired shapes using 3D-printed tools and duplicated. In the last three years, in addition to the Sound@V trophy, various brackets and corner connectors for POS systems, displays and NFC payment systems were created for the festival.

The collaboration benefits both sides: "For us, the creative ideas of the young people are a great enrichment," emphasizes 1zu1innovation manager Markus Schrittwieser. "They have no technical background, no barriers in their minds and thus regularly produce designs with a wow effect. This also allows us to show potential customers what technology is all about." The young creatives are an ideal target group for agile product development: design, print, test, improve, revise, print, etc.

Music as a three-dimensional sculpture

Back to the extraordinary trophy: To make his idea of launching a Vorarlberg music award more concretely imaginable to potential partners, Poolbar founder Herwig Bauer wanted a music award trophy from the 2019 Lab. After some tinkering, inspiring conversations and ventilating the technical possibilities, lab participant Alex Gahr from the Vienna University of Technology had the brilliant idea. "I wanted to translate the music into a three-dimensional soundscape so that each award winner could hold their own work in their hands," says the architecture student. He was inspired by the record cover of the debut album by the British rock band Joy Division. It shows visualized radio pulses of a neutron star.

The translation of the music - or more precisely: of frequency, amplitude and beat - by means of an algorithm was done by software. It produced a 380 by 40 millimeter geometry with peaks up to 70 millimeters high, which was printed 1to1 from polyamide using selective laser sintering. The soundscape was then glued onto a piece of wood taken from a tree in Vorarlberg. This is how the award materializes music and the regional symbiosis of nature and high-tech.

What sounds so simple, of course, does not work in practice without overcoming some technical hurdles. "The software's task is to calculate a geometry of vectors - lots of little triangles - from the music, which also determine the material distribution," explains Markus Schrittwieser. If errors occur during the transformation, they have to be corrected. Despite the filigree appearance, the result is quite robust: "The polyamide is very elastic with the low wall thicknesses. The filigree-looking tips would therefore at best bend, but hardly break," says Schrittwieser.

Just-in-time production

Time jump to the year 2022. The grand awards ceremony was scheduled for Saturday, July 9, 2022. The award winners were selected only a week before. Within a few days, the music had to be translated into construction files, the printing had to be done and the trophy had to be finalized. After all, each trophy was unique with the music of the respective winner. "A requirement that can only be met with 3D printing," Markus Schrittwieser notes proudly.

The Sound@V trophy is a good example of what is technically possible today. The challenge is to break free from the limitations of conventional production methods, i.e. to think of products in 3D. This opens up new possibilities: Individualization despite high volumes, thick or thin geometries, cavities and much more become possible. This is how innovative design becomes a reality with 3D printing.

For more information on the Poolbar Festival, visit: www.poolbar.at