The following appears on designboom.com
There’s no doubt that 3D printing has been one of the hottest topics in design and manufacturing in 2013. earlier this year, we began to see the rapid evolution of the prototyping technique become a contender as the next catalyst of a new industrial revolution. from growing artificial human organs to human-scale architectural spaces, 3D printing has provided a democratic platform for production and independent creation. to see which projects left a big impression on the public in 2013, see designboom’s round up of the most popular stories this year.
In the most recent medical development in artificial organ creation, a team of scientists and physicians from cornell university have engineered 3D printed life-like ears used to treat children born with a congenital deformity called microtia, or help individuals who have lost part or all of their external ear in an accident or from cancer. the artificial body tissue is made by processing additive gels found within living cells – with collagen derived from rat tails and cartilage taken from cow ears.
A fully immersive, human-scale architectural object, created by michael hansmeyer and benjamin dillenburgeremerges as the first life-sized construction to be entirely 3D printed out of sandstone. ‘digital grotesque‘ is now a realized space, 
consisting of two individual halves that form an aggregate volume — the grotto. from the outside, the structure presents itself as a cubical mass, but its interior hides an intricate geometry of millions of design facets. the room’s impossible ornamentation and free-form geometries represent a paradigm shift within the field of digital fabrication.
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