Great Furniture Ideas That are 3D Printed
3D printing has made inroads into the furniture industry. While most furniture is still mass-produced using traditional manufacturing methods, 3D printing has enabled designers to play with their imagination and innovate as much as they want. The resulting outcomes brought to the market are no less fabulous, interesting, unique and some can be very pricey.
3D printing may not be the norm for furniture. But it is a great tool for producing high-end furniture, often developed by famous designers who want to explore new shapes and ideas. However, quantities are limited and certainly not mass-produced. Geometries are complex and designs can be extraordinary which are difficult to produce with molds.
Here are some very interesting designs from different parts of the world.
There’s the Nagami Chair Collection from Spain. It consisted of four 3D printed chairs designed by different architects and designers. All were created using FDM 3D printers and were introduced during the Milan Design Week in 2018. Two of them were inspired by sea life, one looking like a coral. Another chair consists of three parts, creating the effect of its parts peeling off of an invisible joint. One is a blue chair which clearly represents the lines from FDM printing layers.
The Ocke Series is from Germany. It’s a set of 3D printed furniture consisting of a chair and sofa printed using FDM 3D printers with large print volumes and precision. People could easily recognize that the chair and the sofa were designed specifically for 3D printing. The makers can also design furniture without using any support material. This was achieved by positioning the poles – the main structural elements of the pieces – at low angles.
The Sofa So Good lounger was created using 3D System’s ProX 950, an industrial, large-volume SLA 3D printer. American-made, the lounger features an incredible complex mesh design, resembling a metal-coated spider web. It was printed with as little material as possible while still maintaining structural strength. It’s single print design used only 2.5 liters of resin, which translates to 6,000 layers and able to support a maximum weight of 100 kilograms.
Most of the furniture discussed here was made by studios and designers who wanted to explore the production capabilities of 3D printing.
