While it may at first appear to be a colorized version of Joris Laarman’s bone furniture, the Multithread collection of 3D printed furniture is anything but. Design duo Kram/Weisshaar developed a software application that automatically modifies joints to support asymmetric force loads–followed by painting the units to show where the force is being distributed in the structure for the final representation. Check out their process here.
Kram/Weisshaar and Digital Design
Being hailed as “the vanguard of the next generation of digital designers” (FORM Magazine) and “the poster boys of a new breed of designers” (International Herald Tribune), the duo of Reed Kram and Clemens Weisshaar have been surprisingly effective as a team, considering that one lives in Sweden and the other in Germany. Despite their geological distance disadvantage (or advantage?), the duo are well known for manipulating the physical world with self-developed digital tools:
The VENDÔME project takes a precondition of endless transformation as its point of departure. Originally commissioned by DESIGN MIAMI/ BASEL and first introduced in Basel in June 2008, VENDÔME consists of a set of 99 one-off concrete objects, each generated through the use of a custom-made piece of software programmed by the designers. Given the material concrete as one of the central parameters for the commission, the question arose of how to reconcile the conflict between dynamism and stasis, between the transience of software and permanence of concrete.
The Multithread Collection and Process
Currently on show at the Istanbul Design Biennial, the Multithread 3D printed furniture collection consists of a flat horizontal surface and is built downwards. A web of bars are connected to define support for the horizontal surfaces, and by using a custom software created by the designers, an analysis is performed to modify the structure based on the forces passing through the tangle of bars. The final cosmetic appearance and form is a literal physical representation of a stress analysis. What do you think? Would a stress analysis visualization look pretty in the dining room?
You be the judge:
