Apr 1, 2016 | By Tess
Bonsai, the art of growing and grooming miniature trees, has existed in Japanese culture for over a thousand years, and requires enormous patience and skill. From wiring and clamping, to grafting, to leaf trimming, growing and maintaining a bonsai tree can be a difficult hobby to fit into to our busy daily lives. Thanks to 3D printing technologies and Japanese design firm Nendo, however, the art of the bonsai could soon have a tech revival with the company’s ingenious design for 3D printed bonsai trees that you can trim and prune yourself.
Nendo’s Creative Director and design guru Oki Sato announced the project as a pilot idea for mobile company Softbank’s recently launched crowdfunding website, +Style, and though nothing official has been unveiled yet, even the idea has us blooming with excitement.
The details for the 3D printed bonsai tree are still mostly under wraps, but from what we can tell you’ll be able to choose from a variety of tree bases, and 3D print them with what looks like lampshade of plastic lattice. From there you can cut away at the plastic, effectively grooming your own miniature plastic tree, giving it whatever shape and design you desire. Of course, if you are not inclined to prune and trim the tree yourself, you can always choose to digitally design the final tree shape you want and 3D print it directly. From what we understand, there will be an accompanying app to help you do this.
The idea for the 3D printed DIY bonsai tree was announced as a part of Nendo’s Design of Things (DoT) platform, which will reportedly be associated with Softbank’s crowdfunding platform.
Nendo, the Japanese design firm, was founded by Toronto-born Oki Sato in 2002 in Tokyo, Japan. Since then, the company has also opened an office in Milan, Italy. Oki Sato and Nendo’s designs have notably been recognized by a number of prestigious awards over the years, including the 2015 Designer of the Year award from Maison & Objet. The company’s success and recognition are undoubtedly linked to its unique and uplifting philosophy of bringing happy and surprising moments into people’s lives through their designs.
Nendo’s purpose, as stated on its website is, “Giving people a small ” ! ” moment. There are so many small ” ! ” moments hidden in our everyday. But we don’t recognize them. and even when we do recognize them, we tend to unconsciously reset our minds and forget what we’ve seen. But we believe these small ” ! ” moments are what make our days so interesting, so rich.That’s why we want to reconstitute the everyday by collecting and reshaping them into something that’s easy to understand. We’d like the people who’ve encountered Nendo’s designs to feel these small ” ! ” moments intuitively.”
There is little doubt that a 3D printed bonsai tree, especially one that looks as good as those pictured, would bring a moment of simple happiness and serenity to our lives. And while we don’t yet know when we will be able to get our hands on our very own 3D printed bonsai tree, we will be sure to keep an ear open for when the campaign or project is officially launched!
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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