This Week in Tech: PriestmanGoode and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Unveil a Full-Scale Hyperloop Prototype

This week, London-based design consultancy PriestmanGoode and Culver City, Calif.–based research company Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) unveiled their first full-scale Hyperloop passenger capsule at an event in El Puerto de Santa María in southwest Spain. Called “Quintero One,” the 105-foot-long capsule is constructed from HTT’s “specially-made, dual-layer smart composite material,” according to a press release. The vessel is now headed to HTT’s research facility in Toulouse, France, for further development before being used on one of the company’s first commercial tracks. According to HTT co-founder and chairman Bibop Gresta, “Quintero One” will be ready to use by 2019. The two companies had unveiled their initial concept for the “Quintero One” passenger pod back in September 2017. [PR Newswire]

We are excited to announce that Bristlecone Construction has joined Katerra! The new team will bring self-perform expertise in critical areas and help to continue scaling our construction operations across the U.S. More: https://t.co/KE7NrWpLrQ pic.twitter.com/TEHToxMd3r

— KATERRA (@katerrainc) October 2, 2018

Littleton, Colo.–based general contractor Bristlecone Construction Corp. is now a Katerra company. This acquisition will expand Katerra’s footprint in structural concrete and framing industry and will expand its construction activities in the central U.S. [Katerra]

FIBERBOTS from Mediated Matter Group on Vimeo.

A research team supervised by Neri Oxman, the founding director of MIT’s Mediated Matter Group, has fabricated a 15-foot-tall architectural-scale installation with autonomous 3D printing robots. The structure aggregates 16 freestanding, translucent fiber-reinforced composite (FRC) tubes—each of which required approximately 1.2 miles of fiberglass thread—3D printed by 16 robots. [ARCHITECT]

ICD Aggregate Pavilion 2018 from ICD on Vimeo.

A team of researchers from the University of Stuttgart’s Institute for Computational Design and Construction has designed and constructed an enclosed architectural space made of 120,000 non-convex particles that have the ability to interlock and 725 convex particles that can flow. Made from recycled plastic, these particles are held together only through frictional contact forces without any binding material, much in the same way as sand, snow, or gravel form a semi-solid material. [Institute for Computational Design and Construction]

At this year’s Cersaie, ARCHITECT spotted five porcelain tiles that emulate the look and feel of stone, marble, concrete, metal, and wood, thanks to the latest advances in fabrication and digital printing technologies. [ARCHITECT]

Hayward, Calif.–based Kinestral Technologies has opened its first factory in Taiwan, which will produce its Halio Smart-Tinting Glass panels in sizes up to 5 feet wide by 10 feet long. The 100,000-square-foot factory will join forces with Kinestral’s existing manufacturing facility in California to meet global production demands. According to a Kinestral press release, the company has already started Halio’s worldwide shipping from its Taiwan facility. [Business Wire]