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Autodesk and Airbus have unveiled the world's largest 3D printed airplane cabin component: a 'bionic partition' to separate the passenger cabin from the galley. The innovative design mimics the organic cellular structure and bone growth found in living organisms. The presentation will give insights about the design and manufacturing process.

Bastian Schäfer, born in 1980, is a maverick, kitesurfer, TED speaker, father of a boy and a girl and beside all of this automotive engineer.

After his internship and diploma thesis on parametric associative design at Volkswagen Design Center Wolfsburg he received his diploma from the University of Applied Sciences Hamburg in 2006.

Since his graduation he is working for Airbus in different projects. For Airbus he designed A340 In-Flight Entertainment equipment, supported the A380 stairs development and was involved in the design of the A350 XWB lavatories.

In December 2009 he joined the Cabin Innovation Strategy & Concepts team in Hamburg and was member of the project team who created the mind-blowing Airbus Concept Cabin with its bionic structure.

This work resulted into talks at TEDGlobal 2013, BOLDtalks 2013 and interviews with Forbes, BBC, CNN, TheTakeaway, juri Magazin, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and VDI Nachrichten.

Bastian is the project leader of the Bionic Partition project where he is focussing on multi-objective optimization approaches combined with 3D printing technology within a joined-innovation project with Autodesk and other partners.

Beside 3D printing his professional interests are focussing on topics such as Synthetic Biology, Robotics, Bio-Quantum-Nano-Technology and sustainability ("cradle-to-cradle") as one of the core leavers to solve todays problems in product design.

Since September 2014 he is part of the Emerging Technologies & Concepts team within the Airbus R&T organization.

Airbus is a leading aircraft manufacturer with the most modern and comprehensive family of airliners on the market, ranging in capacity from 100 to more than 500 seats. Airbus champions innovative technologies and offers some of the world's most fuel efficient and quiet aircraft. Airbus has sold more than 16,300 aircraft to more than 380 customers worldwide. Airbus has achieved more than 9,500 deliveries since the first Airbus aircraft entered into service. Airbus is headquartered in Toulouse, France and has design and manufacturing facilities in France, Germany, the UK, and Spain, and subsidiaries in the US, China, India, Japan and in the Middle East.