22/11/2024
The French designer Patrick Jouin was one of the first to use 3D printing for furniture design in the early 2000s. His chair Solid C2 was the first piece of furniture to be printed to scale in a single operation. The printing method that Jouin chose for this was stereolithography, which is an additive manufacturing process that works by building the end product layer by layer. The material used for this is a liquid artificial resin such as epoxy resin, which hardens in response to light. Using a laser, the object is drawn onto the surface of a vat of photopolymer. The laser causes the layer of liquid resin immediately below the surface to solidify, whereupon the platform on which it is resting is lowered to allow the next layer to be lasered in its turn. The object can thus be seen literally rising up out of the vat.
As part of our collaboration with Audi Deutschland, we are taking a closer look at some protagonists of design progress in our collection: what ideas had an outstanding impact on design, where did inspiration come from and how do we actually design progress?
The Icons of Progress series is part of a paid partnership between the Vitra Design Museum and AUDI AG dedicated to the questions of innovation, progress and sustainability in design, taking new perspectives on the museum’s collection, the Vitra Schaudepot and mutual research themes.
