Avi

Avraham Cohen


Avraham Cohen is an Architect, a multidisciplinary artist, and an MSc student at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion.

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Research Topic: The New Music Artifact
Designing an Additive Manufacturing Method for Bio-based Records

Technological progress over time has directly influenced the design of physical artifacts and the development of incremental advancements within manufacturing methodologies. For independent creators in the music industry, technological literacy has brought forward empowerment and the ability to push their creative frontiers, enabling the independent music sector to become a significant player in the industry. Recent technologies have challenged designers and inventors to develop new formats and ways to consume music, such as headphones, portable players, and multiple music streaming applications. Today when online streaming is the primary way to listen to music, it is interesting to observe a distinct revival of a physical medium in the form of the vinyl record, which is clearly outlined through substantial sales growth over the past two decades.
The leading manufacturing process of records to date remains the same pressing process that goes back to 1960, with minor changes. Recycling treatment and new inventions such as a closed water system, molded material press, and recycled PVC usage have been introduced. However, the usage of the PVC material, the toxic chemicals involved in the process, and the degradability of such a temporal medium are still issues that the record industry deals with nowadays. Therefore, it is worth exploring a new generation of music records, one that emerges from a material perspective and the adaptation of new fabrication technologies such as additive manufacturing.
The research explores new materials and printing methods to propose a new generation of bio-based music artifacts. Following a review of materials that can be 3D printed with high-resolution groove modulation, we examine selected bio-based PLA compositions and their adjustments in relation to different additive manufacturing methods. Based on these experiments, we test the correlation between sound quality and material compatibility to propose a novel design method to fabricate bio-based 3D printed records.