A Decision-Making Tree for Adapting the Additive Manufacturing Repair Repertoire for Biopolymer Composite Materials

Drawing inspiration from ‘broken world thinking,’ aligning repair with innovation, this paper presents the development of an open and flexible decision-making framework for integrating repair into building practice. It introduces a case study examining 3D-printed biopolymer composite panels, which exhibit highly transformative behavior that catalyzes iterative acts of repair. The paper outlines the data streams and thresholds connecting human and automated processes of monitoring and diagnosis, leading to an adaptable repair repertoire. This study examines two cycles of exposure and repair, maturing the decision-making tree and formalizing the information flow across repair stages. This approach establishes procedural workflows in highly dynamic material systems. The iterative repair process through additive manufacturing enables continuity in tool deployment, aligning initial design practices with repair practices.