Bits & Crafts

The transition from analog to digital has fundamentally changed many aspects of our lives from computing to social media in the last decades. In the early 20th century, modernist pioneers valued and changed notions about aesthetics inspired by emerging industrial manufacturing methods. Now, the digital revolution has begun to define an evolution in the way physical objects are designed, manufactured, distributed, protected, and recycled. The realm of digital design tools and digital fabrication is shifting everyone’s ideas on design and pushes our lab to explore the endless new possibilities of the digital revolution. We are extremely excited to be working in such a disruptive time.

Design Bits & Craft expo at Miami/ Basel includes works from Microstructures, Dragon Bench, and the Maker series, as well as debuting the first piece of a new series of robotic printed screens produced by MX3D.  The Butterfly screen’s computational generated esthetics are not only pleasing for the eye but are also pushing the boundaries of our technology. The screen is a 2 x 3 meter double curved bronze surface based on a hexagonal cell division. The Microstructures series is conceptually based on 3D gradient patterning and explores intricate 3D printing in durable materials at the scale of furniture. Each work is made up of cells that vary in form, size or function. For the Dragon Bench we equiped a robot arm with a welding machine that prints stainless steel mid-air, allowing to draw complex curved lines and surfaces in space. The Maker series Hexagon table set is built from many parametric walnut wood parts that are engineered to fit together exactly like a three-dimensional puzzle.

Photocredits: Adriaan de Groot, Anita Star