Francesco Polvi: From 3D Printing Earth at IAAC to Computational Design

After the master, Francesco stayed at IAAC and joined the Advanced Architecture Group. With the students of the Postgraduate in 3D Printing Architecture he worked on TOVA, the first building in Spain made with earth and a 3D printer, built at Valldaura Labs with a Crane WASP printer and soil taken from the site. Francesco took care of the design together with the students and the IAAC team, and managed all the production files for the printer. TOVA won several awards and is still standing at Valldaura, “something of which I am very proud,” he said.

He also designed the geometry of a research project on robotically 3D printed ceramic planters with sensors and automatic irrigation. The clay pieces were printed with IAAC’s robotic arm, then fired, and borrowed the logic of the Nubian vault, a traditional earth construction technique, to reach overhangs that standard parallel printing cannot achieve.

Francesco then moved to LaMáquina by Noumena, a company founded by former IAAC students, where he became Head of Robotic Manufacturing. There he worked with five robotic arms and led some of the first projects in Europe that printed one geometry on top of another, a technique that requires extremely precise repositioning between the digital model and the physical piece.

In 2024 Francesco returned to Italy to join Wood-Skin, the Milan company known for flexible panels that turn flat materials into complex three-dimensional surfaces. Wood-Skin created the ceiling of a United Nations assembly hall in Geneva, and today works with wood, metal and other materials.

For an interior for a fashion brand in Milan, Francesco’s team produced 1,300 different metal pieces, all generated and controlled by a single Grasshopper code that also produced the files for laser cutting and folding. Being able to change the design quickly through parameters was one of the reasons they won the project. On other projects he built tools that give painters a complete colour database and give designers immediate visual feedback on possible errors before production.

“What you learn at IAAC gives you the basis to continue growing,” Francesco said. He estimates that most of his daily work today is built on what he studied at IAAC: computational design, robotics and an open-minded way of learning. He also remembers learning a lot from his classmates by watching how they worked.

In his first month at IAAC, Francesco did not understand why everyone was so passionate about robots, and he had never really used Grasshopper. “It is very important that you do not lose focus and that you trust the process,” he said. “After a few months it clicks, and you see how everything makes sense.” He suggests trying the software before arriving, as long as you learn it well, and being mentally ready to absorb a lot of information in the first weeks.