Space & Prototype Prototype

Tags | 3dprinted, 3dprinting, architecture, experiment, furniture, prototype

We have found a new home!  Hooray!  We’re in the process of designing and moving in to our new studio space.  In light of this, we wanted the space to be, in large part, a place of desktop manufacturing experimentation.  Hence, we’ve been recently designing and prototyping 3d printed furniture components to go within our studio.  We’re trying to mix customised 3d printed components with off-the-shelf materials from the local hardware store and we’re attempting to use no glue, pegs, nails, screws, etc.  They simply slide and lock into place.  We quite like the blend of high-tech printing with lo-tech processes.

3D Models of prototypes

It’s been a fun, hair-pulling, jaw-dropping and crazy process.  Being architecturally trained, we don’t normally go below 5mm tolerances but with the 3d printers, we’ve been pushing up to .5mm tolerances!  We’ve been printing 1:1 prototypes to see how these tolerances, strength, and all the other variables begin to affect the final design.  Vei, our resident 3d printing specialist, has been documenting the process of each print from the feedrates, infills, temperature, material density and type and other factors that affect the quality of the final printed output.  We hope that this research can help us produce high quality prints efficiently.  It’s remarkable how .1mm and 5 degrees of temperature can make a huge difference in how the components go together.

This process is allowing us a huge insight and valuable experience to the prototyping processes with 3d printers and if anyone is interested in trialling out your designs, contact us and we’re more than happy to work with you.

On a final note, we’re running around like headless chooks at the moment so location of our new studio and opening date will be announced later when we’re properly settled!

Settings and test.

Prototypes, prototypes, prototypes

Table Prototype – components

Table Prototype – frame

Table Prototype