3D Printing Grows Up: A Creativity Center Inside a Shopping Mall

For years, 3D printing has been framed as an industrial tool, a maker hobby, or a classroom elective. Bambu Lab and meland are now rewriting that story. In March 2026, the two companies opened what they describe as China’s first 3D printing creativity center for children, located inside the MixC World complex in Shenzhen. The new space, officially named “meland x Bambu Lab,” puts additive manufacturing directly inside one of the city’s busiest retail and entertainment destinations — not in a factory, not in a niche lab, but in the everyday world families already visit.

The idea is simple but ambitious: instead of just telling children what 3D printing is, let them experience it as part of play. According to 3DPrint.com, the center marks Bambu Lab’s first real attempt to bring 3D printing into offline, everyday environments for families. For meland — a premium family indoor entertainment brand with more than 140 locations across over 70 Chinese cities — the partnership extends its “learning through play” model into something more hands-on and technology-driven.

The CyberBrick City: A Miniature World Built Entirely From Printed Parts

The centerpiece of the new facility is an installation called CyberBrick City (Children’s Edition) — a miniature world constructed entirely from 3D printed components. The concept first appeared at Bambu Lab’s headquarters and flagship showroom in Shenzhen, then traveled to Formnext 2025, where it became one of the most recognizable demonstrations of what the company’s machines can produce. For the meland collaboration, the design team rebuilt the concept specifically for a young audience, recreating iconic playground attractions in miniature with streets, buildings, and play structures all produced layer by layer.

The installation is far from a static display. As VoxelMatters reports, the miniature city is enhanced with lighting and interactive effects that draw children in and offer a tangible vision of what 3D printing can achieve. Kids can explore the city, touch it, and begin to understand how each element was made — an intuitive, hands-on introduction to a technology that is otherwise easy to explain but hard to grasp.

Alongside the city, a display wall shows Bambu Lab A1 printers running in real time, so visitors can watch parts being produced before they step into the learning area. Seeing a machine turn a spool of filament into a physical object in minutes is, for many children, the moment the concept clicks.

Two Zones, Two Course Levels: From Watching to Designing

The meland x Bambu Lab center is divided into two main zones: an experience zone, where children explore the 3D printed environment, and a classroom area, where structured learning takes place. Classes target children aged 5 to 12 and are organized into two levels, as detailed by Bambu Lab’s official blog.

In introductory sessions, instructors show children how 3D printers work, explain the basic principles of the technology, and guide them through the entire process of producing a print — from digital file to finished object. In exploratory sessions, the advanced tier, participants design their own 3D models and print them on site, taking home a toy or object of their own creation.

That distinction matters. A child who only prints an existing model learns how to operate a machine. A child who designs an object and then physically holds it understands the full loop: idea, design, print, and result. As the companies put it, the technology — capable of turning ideas into real objects and allowing children to actively participate in the creative process — fits naturally into family entertainment, offering the industry a new direction with strong growth potential.

Staff at the center are employed by meland and have all been trained by Bambu Lab, so they can operate the printers, run the courses, and answer questions from children and parents alike.

Why This Matters: 3D Printing as Part of Childhood, Not Just Education

The significance of the Shenzhen center goes beyond a single store opening. Historically, 3D printing in education has been isolated: a single machine in a classroom, a one-off workshop, a demonstration without follow-through. The meland x Bambu Lab model embeds the technology inside a play environment where children return again and again. The entire space is built around the idea of making, so kids experience 3D printing as part of how they play, learn, and think — not as a tool they use once.

This is also a commercial signal. For Bambu Lab, the project is a first step toward integrating 3D printing into everyday family life, and both companies say the collaboration has strong potential to scale across meland’s extensive network of locations throughout China. If the model works in Shenzhen, the next few years could see dozens of 3D printing creativity centers open in malls across the country — bringing the technology to millions of families who have never touched a 3D printer.

For parents, the trend also validates a growing idea: 3D printing is not just for engineers and hobbyists. It is a creative medium children can genuinely master, on a scale that fits a living room, a classroom, or a shopping mall.

How TT3DPrint Can Help

Stories like the CyberBrick City show what desktop 3D printing can do when creativity meets the right tools. At TT3DPrint, we operate a fleet of Bambu Lab 3D printers to turn ideas into physical products every day — custom figurines, educational models, toys, and creative gifts for customers worldwide. Whether you need a one-off prototype, a batch of custom products, or help turning a design into a reality, our team delivers high-quality FDM printing with fast turnaround and worldwide shipping. Contact us for a quote and see what your idea looks like in real life.

Conclusion

The meland x Bambu Lab creativity center is a glimpse of where 3D printing is heading: out of the factory, into the mall, and into the hands of children. By building a miniature world entirely from printed parts and teaching kids to create their own, Bambu Lab and meland have turned additive manufacturing into something families can see, touch, and learn from. If the model scales, 3D printing will no longer be a technology children read about — it will be part of how they play.