The Brooklyn-based design/build studio 4-Pli designs and manufactures furniture cut from sustainably-harvested plywood on their in-house CNC mill which are then finished with low-VOC paints and varnishes. Much of their collection has elements that repeat, slide together, or nest within each other. They’re not exactly flat-pack design, but they’re also not hand-carved one-of-a-kind pieces (luckily for us). Their work finds a wonderful balance between the two extremes, resulting in work that is simple and sophisticated. (more…)

Share This

Ceramic artist John Balistreri wanted to explore the world of rapid prototyping and the ways it could expand the boundaries of ceramic art so, he teamed up with Gregory Little at Bowling Green State University and BGSU’s ZCorp 3D printer. Balistreri and the team at BGSU experimented with with various clays and binders to create finished, functional ceramic objects that are compatible with ZCorp’s printing process. ZCorp technology closely resembles current inkjet technology, the difference is instead of printing on paper, it prints on increasing layers of powder material.

The teacup was created by scanning a hand-thrown teacup with a 3D scanner and reproducing the teacup with the printer. The teapot, however, was printed directly from a digital file, which opens up a number of possibilities that aren’t possible with traditional ceramic techniques. With traditional ceramics, the rendering of an object is limited by the pull of gravity. Because printed ceramics are surrounded by dry media, they are able to ignore gravity to create structures that are currently either impossible or unfeasible with today’s production technologies, such as engine parts, or superior water filters. All in all, printed ceramics look pretty cool and they might change the world.

Share This

There is a heap of cool materials and making techniques out there that could be combined with your Ponoko pieces to form your products. Ever thought of using some carpet samples? Well apparently 700, 000 fabric samples are shipped every year to architects and interior designers and once they have served there purpose they are thrown away. Ample sample is a competition that tries to get people thinking about how these squares of carpet can be reused and turned into something useful. Now in its second year the competition has resulted in some great ideas.

One of the winners from last year was the Care-E Purse; it was designed from a single carpet tile and blocks of scrap wood, and provides a convenient way to carry your things and tells the world you’re green.

They are still accepting entries into this year’s competition but there has already been some clever ideas submitted. The carpet pet house and the rug dish are two of my favourites.

Share This

I love cardboard furniture. There’s something alchemic about turning such an omnipresent, mundane material into something other than a box. Cardboard furniture is really great for temporary purposes such as outfitting a dorm, traveling, and in Green Lullaby’s case, providing for rapidly sprouting children. Green Lullaby has designed a small series of cardboard furnishings for children of various ages that are eco-friendly and damned useful, often incorporating storage space in their design. With a cradle, bench, table, and stools, each piece appears to be sturdy, beautiful, and functional, although I would hope the cradle is at least water-resistant. (more…)

Share This

Mio who I’ve written about here before, have some great puzzle products. I like the Haute Surface Houndstooth Set because it’s fun and functional. It’s a collection of interlocking pieces of cork in two contrasting colours; tan and chocolate. The pieces when assembled can perform a variety of functions. “The trivets can be arranged into stunning table runners, table protective arrangements, place mats or even mouse pads”. The designer Jaime Salm was inspired by hounds tooth patterns in textile design but then I guess you knew that from the name. The concept was to use a pattern as a means to decorate and protect tables, while encouraging creative table presentation. This would be a perfect desk item for anyone looking for something to entertain them while procrastinating from work.

It’s got a few ticks in the environmental column too. Being modular it extends the life of the product as individual pieces can be replaced. I guess the idea is that it would also extend the life of the table it is protecting and it’s also made from reconstituted cork. Their other designs are the Haute Surface ZigZag Set and the ModuTiles.

Share This

In an announcement that has shocked the various folding communities, researchers at USC Information Sciences Institute have invented a method of folding teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy containers made from polysilicon and gold film. Why is this interesting to Ponoko citizens? The folded shapes are produced from the labyrinthine-monikered process PolyMUMPs (Poly Multi User MEMS Processes) which, at it barest essentials, is an etching process to create very small custom shapes on sheets of material, usually silicon or gold foil. (more…)

Share This

Undoubtedly one of the great strengths of laser cutting is it’s ability to so accurately create delicate patterns and surface details. Laser cutting is now allowing designers of shoes and accessories to produce products with more intricate patterns than ever before. On iaac blog I found Designer Roberto Cavilli, who has designed a new collection of products using leather but with all the fine detail of lace. The cut-out areas in the leather allow sections of brilliant colour from the satin underneath to show through.

Another designer using laser cut patterns is Gabrielle Lewin. Her placemats available from MOMA have a flowing floral pattern laser cut into felt. She has also used the same techniques with her coasters.

The fiore partition wall is another great example from Fabrizio Bertero. It’s got a laser cut leaf pattern in steel. The patrician makes great use of positive and negative space. It’s interesting how such a hard and heavy material has been made to look so warm and delicate.

Share This

I found a tutorial that might interest all the DIY people. It’s on how to bend acrylic at hack a day. It shows you how to build your own acrylic bender which apparently is normally a $200 piece of equipment. You just need to get a hold of a heating element and then it looks fairly easy to build the bender. Or if you prefer you can use the heat gun method.

Which ever method you choose bending acrylic can give you a few more options for your ponoko designs. It opens up a whole new world of bendy forms. For example take a look at this heat formed occasional table by Afid design. It’s made from one piece of acrylic that is bent into this beautiful sculptural piece. It comes in your choice of three or four legs and a variety of colours. The wood version of the table is stunning as well.

Happy bending!

Share This

In order to get free delivery back in January, I rather hurriedly had a variation on Dan’s box lamp cut, and was kicking myself when the pieces arrived for not making full use of the hardboard - I’d overlooked the fact that the box lamp only uses one bit of the hardboard, and should have added something useful as Kyokpaesshowroom (bit of a mouthful I know) did: a wee tangram puzzle. Neat.

It would be great if Ponoko alerted the designer when they are about to waste material. But since we already have a ready-made repository of laser cutting template files in Ponoko, could a program be developed that analyses your .eps file and suggests other designs that could be added to make better use of the material? This could even be done in such a way as to add a little chaos to the process, leading to some interesting mashups of designs in unintended materials, or at unforeseen scales. It seems that Ponoko has provided a great opportunity for improved efficiency of materials in this way. A quick search brings up the imaginatively named Sheet Layout but this seems overly powerful for most people’s needs, and I’m unclear as to whether it could automatically place a cutting path in a given space.
Incidentally, the case of Dan’s box lamp seems to be a good example of ‘remixing’ design data on Ponoko: starting with his floral design;

followed by Kyokpaesshowroom’s dragonfly interpretation;

and then my tea-leaf inspired design (a pattern that I pretty much cut and pasted from another of my projects):

As derivatives of a ShareAlike license, all of them are available for free, on attribution and non-commercial terms. Plus there are more lamp designs using similar principles. VodkaandOrange’s Bonsai lamp, below, makes great use of the laser cutter to create an intricate cut-out pattern in the acrylic. Isn’t light brilliant?

Share This

The design blog NOTCOT has a quick interview with Studio Lo about their creative process and material choices. Studio Lo is a French company made up of two designers who create fantastic minimalist flat pack products. You’ve seen their PANO chair previously here, its design is emblematic of their work; embracing the idea of sustainability, using natural materials and minimizing waste. Some of their current designs include the slippers seen above, a rustic-textured birdhouse, and a purse among other things. Their material is cut using a water-jet cutter, which produces results similar to the laser cutters used by Ponoko. If you’re looking for inspiration, or just want to see what is possible in flat-pack design, I would recommend reading the interview over at NOTCOT, then stopping by their website for a look.

You can read the full interview from NOTCOT here.

Share This