A 3D-printed jumbo jet?

Designer Bastian Schaefer shows off a speculative design for the future of jet planes, with a skeleton inspired by strong, flexible, natural forms and by the needs of the world's, ahem, growing population. Imagine an airplane that's full of light and space -- and built up from generative parts in a 3D printer.

What do we know about the future?

Difficult question,
simple answer: nothing.

We cannot predict the future.

We only can create a vision
of the future, how it might be,

a vision which reveals disruptive
ideas, which is inspiring,

and this is the most important reason

which breaks the chains
of common thinking.

There are a lot of people

who created their own vision
about the future,

for instance, this vision here
from the early 20th century.

It says here that this
is the ocean plane of the future.

It takes only one and a half days
to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

Today, we know that this future
vision didn't come true.

So this is our largest
airplane which we have,

the Airbus A380, and it's quite huge,

so a lot of people fit in there

and it's technically completely different

than the vision I've shown to you.

I'm working in a team with Airbus,

and we have created our vision

about a more sustainable
future of aviation.

So sustainability is quite
important for us,

which should incorporate social

but as well as environmental
and economic values.

So we have created a very
disruptive structure

which mimics the design
of bone, or a skeleton,

which occurs in nature.

So that's why it looks
maybe a little bit weird,

especially to the people who deal
with structures in general.

But at least it's just a kind of artwork

to explore our ideas
about a different future.

What are the main customers of the future?

So, we have the old, we have the young,

we have the uprising power of women,

and there's one mega-trend
which affects all of us.

These are the future anthropometrics.

So our children are getting
larger, but at the same time

we are growing into different directions.

So what we need is space
inside the aircraft,

inside a very dense area.

These people have different needs.

So we see a clear need
of active health promotion,

especially in the case of the old people.

We want to be treated as individuals.

We like to be productive
throughout the entire travel chain,

and what we are doing in the future is

we want to use the latest
man-machine interface,

and we want to integrate this
and show this in one product.

So we combined these needs
with technology's themes.

So for instance, we are asking ourselves,

how can we create more light?

How can we bring more natural
light into the airplane?

So this airplane has no
windows anymore, for example.

What about the data
and communication software

which we need in the future?

My belief is that the airplane
of the future

will get its own consciousness.

It will be more like a living organism

than just a collection
of very complex technology.

This will be very different in the future.

It will communicate directly

with the passenger in its environment.

And then we are talking
also about materials,

synthetic biology, for example.

And my belief is that we will get
more and more

new materials which we can
put into structure later on,

because structure is one of the key
issues in aircraft design.

So let's compare the old
world with the new world.

I just want to show you here
what we are doing today.

So this is a bracket of an A380
crew rest compartment.

It takes a lot of weight,

and it follows the classical design rules.

This here is an equal bracket
for the same purpose.

It follows the design of bone.

The design process
is completely different.

At the one hand, we have 1.2 kilos,

and at the other hand 0.6 kilos.

So this technology, 3D
printing, and new design rules

really help us to reduce the weight,

which is the biggest issue
in aircraft design,

because it's directly linked
to greenhouse gas emissions.

Push this idea a little bit forward.

So how does nature build its
components and structures?

So nature is very clever.
It puts all the information

into these small building
blocks, which we call DNA.

And nature builds large
skeletons out of it.

So we see a bottom-up approach here,

because all the information,
as I said, are inside the DNA.

And this is combined
with a top-down approach,

because what we are doing
in our daily life

is we train our muscles,
we train our skeleton,

and it's getting stronger.

And the same approach can be
applied to technology as well.

So our building block is carbon
nanotubes, for example,

to create a large, rivet-less
skeleton at the end of the day.

How this looks in particular,
you can show it here.

So imagine you have
carbon nanotubes growing

inside a 3D printer,

and they are embedded
inside a matrix of plastic,

and follow the forces
which occur in your component.

And you've got trillions of them.

So you really align them to wood,

and you take this wood and make
morphological optimization,

so you make structures, sub-structures,

which allows you to transmit
electrical energy or data.

And now we take this
material, combine this

with a top-down approach,

and build bigger and bigger components.

So how might the airplane
of the future look?

So we have very different
seats which adapt

to the shape of the future passenger,

with the different anthropometrics.

We have social areas inside the aircraft

which might turn into a place

where you can play virtual golf.

And finally, this bionic structure,

which is covered by a transparent

biopolymer membrane,
will really change radically

how we look at aircrafts in the future.

So as Jason Silva said,

if we can imagine it, why not make it so?

See you in the future. Thank you.

(Applause)