Inspired by the prefabricated cabins and work-from-home solutions coming out of the pandemic, designers across the globe are coming up with their own answers to local office problems. In Rotterdam, Europe’s largest seaport, warehouses often lack demarcated and comfortable offices for their workers, pushing ArchiTech Company to collaborate with Royal 3D and the Port of Rotterdam Authority and come up with a solution. Finding one in R-IGLO, the new office zones resemble the shape of igloos and are 3D-printed using the waste that comes from Rotterdam’s local ports.

In making R-IGLO, ArchiTech Company joined arms with Royal 3D to create igloo-like workspaces that are made from recycled PET plastic, a material that can be reused plenty of times over. Currently undergoing redevelopment, an important harbor in Rotterdam called M4H is where the team behind R-IGLO sources all the material used during the 3D printing process. Once the materials needed for printing are acquired, the construction of each R-IGLO workspace takes place in M4H as well. The R-IGLO units are built by linking together 3D-printed panels that can later be disassembled, stored, and transported just as easily as they were put together. Since each R-IGLO structure comprises several modules, owners can decrease or increase the size of their R-IGLO by swapping out different sized modules.

R-IGLO was conceived in order to solve the lack of working spaces in Rotterdam’s M4H district, where many of the warehouses require more working zones. Reinforcing the PET plastics with short glass fibers during the 3D printing process, each igloo-like workspace is durable and rigid on the outside and creates soft acoustics on the inside. Better yet, each R-IGLO is printed from a CFAM machine, one of the world’s largest printers, printing the entire igloo-like structure in a mere ten days.

Designer: ArchiTech Company, Royal 3D, Port of Rotterdam Authority

Locally sourced and built inside the warehouses of MFH’s port, R-IGLO is a large-scale 3D printed solution for workspaces.

With a rigid, solid exterior, R-IGLO keeps noise out while the interior provides some soft acoustics.

Each R-IGLO comes in modules so the overall size can be enlargened or reduced according to the worker’s needs.

Printed off CFAM printers, R-IGLO structures can be built in a short matter of ten days.

Coming included with light sockets and interior heating, each R-IGLO represents what the designers call, “a modular turn-key solution.”