RDM Rotterdam
Our brightest minds are here – that feeling, so to speak. Powderhouses, as Eric Geboers of 3D printer maker CONCR3DE would put it. After all, his company, which he founded six years ago with associate Matteo Baldassari, works with powder.
Powder? Yes. It works something like this: you make powder from a certain material (such as metal, cement, stone or ceramic) and you put it in a thin layer in the printer. The printer puts a certain kind of ink on that, and the chemical reaction between the ink and the powder creates a hardened material in the shape you designed. At CONCR3DE, found on a large lot in the back of the Innovation Dock, they design these kinds of printers – ‘R&D printers’, aka research and development. CONCR3DE’s printers allow you to research what inks and materials match and what they create.
Eric: “We now build 3D printers, from small ones to large ones, but Matteo and I started out as architects. We dreamed of some kind of architectural machine, where at the push of a button all kinds of special building parts come rolling out. Since we also both have backgrounds in recycled materials and robotics, we decided six years ago to start experimenting in existing 3D printers. That worked a little, but not very well. Then we realized: to do it well, you need a printer of your own. We started developing those, and so now we sell our own research printers. We use them to develop technical materials for complex building applications. But also biomaterials like sawdust and waste streams. A lot of our knowledge relates to the question of how to get a specific type of material out of such a printer. That’s about how you make your ink, how you make your powder and then how you bring them together in all kinds of ways.”
“Every material needs a different chemical reaction with the ink, and researching this is Eric’s and Matteo’s passion. They now employ 23 people who all contribute their bit (or ceramics) to it. “Yes, it’s going really well. We’ve grown a lot in the last two years. There are two or three companies in the world that sell printers this way, but in the Netherlands we are unique.” That’s in the sustainable, recycled materials CONCR3DE uses and the knowledge they are happy to share with interested parties. Unlike other printer manufacturers, “If you look at our competitors, they are bigger, but much more closed and keep the knowledge to themselves. With us you can come by and do tests – we like to share our knowledge. In combination with the sale of the R&D printer, with which you do research, this attitude makes it easy for us to cooperate with customers and research institutes. And enables us to develop in an extremely focused way, so if a customer has a problem, we try to solve it specifically for them.” One of the reasons for that meteoric growth is the RDM and Innovation Dock. “Because we grew so fast, we looked around a lot for good places to locate. But the fact that we were able to grow from two people to 23 in this hall is really great and kind of special. And besides, when you come in here as a customer, it’s a bit different from an office along the highway. Upon entering the hall everyone is like, ‘oh wow, how cool’. I think people sometimes underestimate the value of that. An entrance like that really adds something to your company.”
“We also know the other companies; the knowledge here is obviously enormously varied and exciting. We are specifically in a niche, so we don’t necessarily work a lot with the other companies, but we do, for example, work with Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences and Rotterdam Technical College. We find our interns there and we can use the machines they have for testing. Yes, the activity on RDM is enormously valuable.”
A colleague of Eric’s grabs a skateboard and whizzes off. “We have another lot on the other side of the building, with a skateboard you just get there faster. And the cast floor is very suitable for skateboards,” Eric laughs.
Photography by Eric Fecken
