Generative software makes it possible to develop algorithms that can elaborate certain parameters to “grow” designs that are always unique, in a way similar to how nature works. 3D printing now makes it possible to turn these unique designs into reality and this is opening up new paths for creative design studios such as MHOX.
We wrote about them a few months ago when, together with professional 3D printing service (and producer of the Windform line of powders for SLS) CRP Group, they created an amazing set of medical orthoses based on the specific shapes of the person wearing them. Their new project, Generative Belt Buckles, is more consumer oriented and yet no less fascinating.
The studio was asked by the popular clothing brand Scunzani to design a set of unique buckles for a line of crocodile skin belts. To develop something truly unique MHOX leveraged its previous experience with the Collagene Masks project to design products that needed to be of generative nature, aesthetically pleasing, functional and unique.
To do that, MHOX developed a new approach to product design, one where the ideal product is selected from a multiplicity of possible candidates instead of on the visualization of one single optimal form. In this “bottom-up” approach, a specific software and workflow was developed internally and used to automatically breed a large population of buckle phenotypes.
Out of a pool of hundreds of phenotypes the twenty best ones were selected and produced through 3D printing technologies thus introducing a form of “mass customization” for product design as opposed to mass production. Generative design 3D printing also made it possible for MHOX to finalize the product in a way that was fully compatible with market timing. If you are waiting for new and amazing 3D printed products to reach the market, “keep your pants on”. With Scanzani’s belt buckles it will be even easier.
