Sep 24, 2015 | By Kira
In many of today’s startups, design studios, tech bureaus, or really just about any office space, we are seeing people make a clear move away from the standard grey cubicle, which has become a sort of symbol for corporate drones and drudgery. Instead, people opt for open-concept ‘creative spaces,’ where people and their ideas can move freely and be inspired by their surroundings. To that end, iconic modernist furniture designer Herman Miller has introduced the Metaform Portfolio, large, modular EPP blocks in tandem with a wide-range of 3D printed MetaformTools, hooks and shelves that allow you to completely customize your workspace.
The Portfolio is based around large EPP (Expanded Polypropylene) blocks. Weighing just under 20 pounds, the modular blocks can easily be moved around, combined into straight or curved formations, shaped into open, semi-enclosed, or closed spaces, and then fitted with a variety of hooks and shelves, the Metaform Tools that suit literally any need that you may have—from laptop shelves that can be adjusted to any height, to guitar stands, to headphone holders, tape dispensers, magazine racks, flower vases, coat hooks, and even a banana holder. The bright colours and clean lines complement Herman Miller's existing modernist aesthetic, and the clip-on format means that no hammers, screwdivers or other instruments are required.
Studio 7.5, the German design studio behind Metaform Portfolio, want you to see it as a kind of ‘universal operating system,’ with each tool as a specific ‘app’ that will make your workspace as flexible and intuitive as your laptop or personal technology device. Just as you can update your phone’s software, the Porftolio is designed to grow with your changing needs. “Our goal is to enable people to assume roles similar to those of a craftsman in his shop, surrounded by what he needs to be most productive,” they said. “Metaform empowers people by giving them more control over their environments and tools.”
The innovative use of 3D printing technology not only makes the designs affordable and entirely customizable, it incorporates 3D printed objects into our everyday lives in a way that has not yet been feasible, given the impracticality of 3D printing large consumer furniture products on a mass scale.
Each tool is 3D printed according to individual request. Users can choose from a wide variety of materials, colors and textures on the website, and then either order the 3D prints directly from the site, or if they have their own 3D printer, download the STL files and do it themselves. The website also provides a community platform, where users can exchange ideas and share how they customized or used particular tools. There are currently around 60 items in the ‘toolshed’, but through this community, third party designers or even individuals could be invited to submit their own tool ideas.
Studio 7.5 was established in 1992 and is composed of Burkhard Schmitz, Claudia Pilkat, Carola Zwick and Roland Zwick, Carola's brother. The highly collaborative and creative trio has worked with Herman Miller in the past, most notably on the Setu Chair, award-winning Mirra chair, and its successor, the Mirra 2.
As Tim Berners Lee once said: "There was a time when people felt the internet was another world, but now people realize it’s a tool that we use in this world." In that vein, Studio 7.5’s first forray into 3D printing is a very promising way to introduce non-makers to the technology, to invite them to use 3D printed objects in their everyday lives, and to see it as a tool not of the future, but of our present-day world.
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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Lets hope it doesn't catch fire!
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