NUNA studio: Bringing biodiversity to cities with the Multiplier

NUNA studio is a London-based nature-tech startup creating architectural products that bring biodiversity back to cities.

Their current product is a living wall system that captures rainwater and supports plant life in order to make buildings active parts of local ecosystems. By combining architecture, ecology, and material innovation, they create sustainable, modular solutions for the built environment.

It’s an ambitious idea – and that ambition shows up in every detail. These walls don’t just add greenery. They function as sustainable urban drainage systems, or SuDS, an approach in urban planning that manages rainwater where it falls. By capturing runoff from the roof and storing it within the wall, the system keeps plants irrigated and the structure self-sustaining, turning each installation into a living, breathing part of the city’s ecosystem.

Big ambitions are one thing. Making them real means solving some very real design and manufacturing challenges first.

A key component of NUNA’s system needed a watertight seal between four inlets branching out in a complex geometry. “Generally making complex small plastic parts I would use a 3D printer,” says co-founder Mac Van Dam, “but we found we weren't able to get the water resilience and the moisture resilience that we needed with typical 3D printing materials.”

Other options, like injection molding, came with their own barriers. While it might have been a technical fit, for a small studio like NUNA, it just wasn’t viable. The upfront costs – often thousands of pounds for a single mold – are hard to justify when every project is different, designs are constantly evolving, and production runs are low. They needed something small-scale and adaptable – a process that fit their iterative design approach from day one, without adding delays or driving up costs.

The Multiplier was NUNA’s way forward.

By pressure forming PETG sheets over low-cost 3D printed molds, they were able to produce highly detailed, moisture-resistant parts quickly and affordably – without the overhead of injection mold tooling or the limitations of 3D printed parts. It meant they could stay flexible, iterate freely, and keep moving without compromising their design process.

It was particularly important that parts captured fine detail in tight corners and crevices. As they explored the capabilities of the Multiplier, they found they could achieve high levels of detail even on parts near the machine’s maximum depth.

“We were able to calibrate the temperature of the Multiplier so that it didn’t deform the molds and was able to get that detail,” Mac explained. Using carbon fiber composite for the 3D printed molds gave them the heat resistance needed to form each part cleanly – even when pressure forming multiple parts in a single cycle.

For NUNA, this way of working ties directly back to their mission: reintroducing nature into cities while keeping environmental impact to a minimum.

By using small-scale production and only making what’s needed, they avoid the excess waste and plastic use that often come with traditional manufacturing – proving that thoughtful, localised design can make cities greener and more sustainable from the ground up.