Lean Objects
An exploration into human serving objects.
- Product sketches
- Cad modelling
- 3D printing
Context
This ongoing project began with a question: How could objects better serve humans through their form? I started thinking about how objects could stretch outside their traditional forms to produce interactions that benefited the user more.
I started with a simple pair of interactions; insertion and removal, and sketched forms that faced or reached towards the user.
These forms — I felt — would create more problems than they solved, especially in the areas of storage, uniformity, and simplicity. So the next iteration of the object form moved the serving function inside the object — with the holding capacity being the suitable trade-off.
As well as the previously created incense holder forms, this new form inspired a beautiful half opening, which lofts downwards to form a slope that points an inserted object towards the user.
The final products were an incense holder, pen holder and an ashtray, which were hand-modelled, 3d printed and sanded down to finish. A second iteration that never came to be would see me experiment with translucent aluminium and recycled waste as the finish material.