Almost a year ago Wired wrote about a four Scandinavian artists/designers who used rapid prototyping to turn their 3D sketches into actual objects. Yesterday the *New York Times *Sunday style mag, T, had a nice round up of designs created the same way. For those not familiar with the technique, rapid prototyping basically prints objects in 3D using lasers to thinly layer and then dry liquid plastic, powdered metal or ceramic. The whole process does not take more than a couple of hours and the results are...well... rerendering the world of design. The only catch is that T estimates the machines go for around a million dollars and are about the size of a VW Beatle. But give the technology a few years, I predict a notebook-sized version is not too far off. Ikea, consider yourself warned.
Bunnylamp by Marijn Vink
OneShot stool by Patrick Jouin
[photos: New York Times]
