Neri Oxman, an architect and a professor at MIT’s Media Lab, intends to print beams, bricks, concrete columns, and other construction materials using 3D printers to build structures layer-by-layer.

Oxman’s 3D printers change the elasticity of a polymer or the porosity of concrete as it’s printed, with print heads mounted on flexible robot arms that have greater freedom of movement than current printers.

She draws inspiration from nature to develop new design strategies that take advantage of these capabilities. For example, making concrete columns like palm trees with low-density porous concrete in the center could reduce the amount of concrete needed by more than 10 percent, a significant savings on the scale of a construction project.

The early results of her work have been featured at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Science in Boston.