---
title: "Recycled 3D printing waste becomes a resonant sculpture field"
url: https://www.voxelmatters.com/recycled-3d-printing-waste-becomes-a-resonant-sculpture-field/
date: 2026-08-12
modified: 2026-08-12
lang: en
author: "Joseph Caron-Dawe"
description: "Design studio Pre- and Post-, led by architect Hyojin Kwon, worked with percussionist and composer Jeremy Muller and architect and material researcher Misri Patel to build Ninefold: A Distributed Resonant..."
categories:
  - "Art"
  - "Sustainability"
tags:
  - "future"
image: https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Recycled-3D-printing-waste-sculpture-field-01-640x320.jpg
word_count: 254
---

# Recycled 3D printing waste becomes a resonant sculpture field

Design studio Pre- and Post-, led by architect Hyojin Kwon, worked with percussionist and composer Jeremy Muller and architect and material researcher Misri Patel to build Ninefold: A Distributed Resonant Field, an installation that [converts recycled 3D printing waste](https://www.voxelmatters.com/mit-eliminates-3d-printing-waste/) into nine large-scale resonant objects. 

The team collected [discarded PLA from fabrication laboratories, shredded it into pellets, combined it with virgin material and reprinted it](https://www.voxelmatters.com/renew-it-recycles-discarded-plastics-into-3d-printing-filament/) into the nine artifacts using pellet-based additive manufacturing. Rather than concealing the recycled content, the fabrication process left variations in transparency, opacity, color and layered deposition visible across each surface.

[![Recycled 3D printing waste becomes a resonant sculpture field](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Recycled-3D-printing-waste-sculpture-field-05-427x640.jpg)](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Recycled-3D-printing-waste-sculpture-field-05.jpg)

[![Recycled 3D printing waste becomes a resonant sculpture field](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Recycled-3D-printing-waste-sculpture-field-02-427x640.jpg)](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Recycled-3D-printing-waste-sculpture-field-02.jpg)

[![Recycled 3D printing waste becomes a resonant sculpture field](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Recycled-3D-printing-waste-sculpture-field-03-427x640.jpg)](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Recycled-3D-printing-waste-sculpture-field-03.jpg)

[![Recycled 3D printing waste becomes a resonant sculpture field](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Recycled-3D-printing-waste-sculpture-field-04-427x640.jpg)](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Recycled-3D-printing-waste-sculpture-field-04.jpg)

The nine shapes were generated through a shared computational system based on reaction-diffusion algorithms, producing continuously evolving forms that expand, contract, twist and fold instead of repeating a single geometry. 

The results vary in scale and configuration, with some developing into tall, slender columns and others widening into chambers or narrowing toward their centers. Each resonator was fabricated in modular sections to allow for transport, maintenance and future reconfiguration.

Each object functions as a resonant body tuned to a specific frequency within a harmonic spectrum, and together the nine artifacts form a distributed sound field in which the source of sound is dispersed through the installation rather than concentrated at one point. 

As visitors move through the space, the relationship between the resonant bodies and their sounds shifts, producing different combinations of acoustic and visual information depending on position.

The installation is currently on view at the Reeves House Visual Arts Center in Woodstock, Georgia.