Design of the Week: Gemini Lounge

By on March 31st, 2014 in Design

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This week’s selection is the Gemini Chaise Lounge, by 3D designer Neri Oxman. 

Oxman has teamed with Stratasys to leverage their incredible new color capabilities in their Connex3 technology to produce this amazing, full-size work. It’s a two-part structure, with a sweeping solid wood shell forming the basic shape of the chair, with an intricately designed, 3D printed “cocoon” upon which the occupant rests. (Click images for larger view.)

Stratasys’ new Connex3 tech permits printing of not only multicolored objects, but also ones including various degrees of flexibility. This is, of course, ideal for a chair. You want soft parts. 

Oxman says: 

The twin chaise spans multiple scales of the human existence extending from the warmth of the womb to the stretches of the Gemini zodiac in deep space. It recapitulates a human cosmos, our body, like the constellation, drifting in quiet space. Here the duality of nature is expressed through the combination of traditional materials and state of the art 3D printing. Stratasys new multi- material color 3D printing capability has allowed me to create a rich dialog between sound and light, rigid and flexible, natural and man-made materials and high and low spatial frequencies in ways that were impossible until now.

The chaise lounge uses almost the full range of Connex3 materials, with 44 different combinations involved, including not only colors, but transparent and flexible materials. 

Stratasys has been focusing on a number of artists and designers to showcase the new technology, which to be honest, requires some skills to master when producing new forms of 3D prints. The Gemini Chaise Lounge certainly demonstrates the new capabilities. 

And it looks pretty comfortable, too. Neri seems to think so, don’t you think? 

Via Stratasys