3DP Applications

Original Redesign of Eames Chair 3D Printed

The reDesign 2012 event took place in Toronto, Canada last week in support of the Textile Museum of Canada. The event brought together a mix of artists, designers and architects who had each been tasked with redesigning a classic Eames-style chair, which would subsequently be sold at auction.

One of the entries was from Levitt Goodman Architects who collaborated with Hot Pop Factory (a 3D printing start-up jewellery company started by architects Matt Compeau and Bi-Ying Miao) on the project.

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Using a combination of 3D digital technologies, including 3D scanning, parametric design and 3D printing. To begin with, an original Eames chair was 3D scanned and the data manipulated to create a “spinal chord” structure. Each piece of the structure was then 3D printed and assembled to form the final structure ready for the exhibition and auction.

For the LG/Hot Pop collaboration, they 3D scanned their chair, then manipulated it using Grasshopper to produce a series of pieces that made up a spinal cord-like structure. The many pieces had to be printed and labelled, then carefully assembled by hand into the final form:

A video demonstration of the whole process can be viewed here, although it is recommended that you skip the first 30 seconds if you suffer from motion sickness!