Cellular Bowl is the first meta-object which I have designed specifically for the 3d printing technology. It is on display at Generative Iterations – my shop on Shapeways. In this project and in several upcoming ones I don’t consider 3d printing as a mean of creation of a mock-up or a model (although 3d printing is still predominantly used for this purpose at architectural and design offices). Instead I treat 3d printing as a mean of production of the final object. It feels quite liberating (for designers and probably for consumers too) although the price constraint is still a bit of an obstacle.

In the description of the process I’m going to use the term “meta-object” – which follows from the recent discussion on mass-customization nomenclature.

Two iterations of the meta-object are already available on Shapeways (20x17x3 cells starting from 62.86 $ and 15x15x4 cells starting from 66.11$). The meta-object was written in Processing. So far I have programed into it an interaction via keyboard only but an on-screen interaction via sliders etc. would be easy to add.

Cellular bowl 15 x 15 x 4 (66.11$)

Cellular bowl 20 x 17 x 3 (62.86$)