Zaha Hadid Architects 3D Prints Six-Meter Tower for Terminal Expo
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Originally reported by 3D Printing Industry
Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has completed a six-meter-tall 3D printed air traffic control tower model for its ZHAviation exhibition stand at Passenger Terminal Expo 2026 in London. The Tech Lab designed and manufactured the installation in-house using a WASP HDP XL extruder mounted on a robotic arm, printing fifteen modular panels in fire-resistant PETG over a continuous 270-hour run. Each panel, roughly one meter tall and wide, is fitted with programmable LED lighting. The tower is demountable by design, attached to a structural metal frame for reuse at future events, and marks the first major project using the Lab's newly installed second robot, enabling coordinated multi-robot printing for the first time in this configuration.
This project is significant not for its architectural novelty but for its direct attack on the throughput bottleneck that constrains large-format robotic printing. A single 270-hour continuous print run on one extruder caps production; ZHA's addition of a second robot, integrated via an extended CEREBRO control system developed with WASP, allows parallel fabrication that can halve future build times. The firm's prior work on the Striatus concrete footbridge, which required 84 hours of single-arm printing for 53 blocks, underscores the same constraint. The industry is converging on coordination software rather than larger extruders as the scaling solution, with competitors like Ai Build integrating WASP's robotic arms into AI-driven platforms to orchestrate multiple machines. ZHA has now demonstrated that it can execute this multi-robot coordination in-house, moving from proof-of-concept to production-ready capability.
For architectural-scale AM, the practical takeaway is that machine-time economics, not geometry, remain the binding constraint. ZHA has shown that adding robotic arms and coordination software can compress schedules, but the real test will be whether the Lab can sustain this parallel production workflow across multiple concurrent projects without degrading reliability. The tower is a credible demonstration that multi-robot printing is ready for exhibition-grade architectural components, but scaling to building-scale production will require further investment in material handling and post-processing logistics.
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