The 3D clay printed vault was developed by students Jan-Willem Melchers, Thijs Maas Geesteranus and Dena Khaksar under the supervision of Prof. Cristina Nan and architect Mattia Zucco at the Department of the Built Environment, Eindhoven University of Technology. The project investigates additive manufacturing with clay, exploring its spatial and ornamental potential in dialogue with the ruins of the Maxentius Basilica in the Forum Romanum.

Roman architecture represents a convergence of material knowledge, structural innovation and architectural expression, with the brick at its core. This project reinterprets the brick through computational design and robotic clay printing, transforming it from a standardized unit into a digitally informed tectonic element.

Focusing on one of the Basilica’s missing vaults, the research addresses both structural and material challenges. The hidden force-flow lines of the historic vault are revealed through three-dimensional tile geometries generated via structural analysis, simulation and computational tessellation. A key challenge was controlling clay’s behavior—its deformation during drying and its non-uniform shrinkage during double firing—while achieving the precision necessary for dry assembly. Through iterative calibration between digital modeling and physical prototyping, shrinkage compensation and deformation control were embedded directly into the robotic fabrication process.

The resulting scaled vault demonstrates how clay, when combined with computation and robotic production, can operate at the intersection of craft, tradition, innovation and sustainability.