Nagami’s Brave New World @ Salone Milan 2018

May 4, 2018
Art / Design News / Milan Design Week / Salone Milan 2018 / Technology
John Engelen
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During the Salone 2018 Spanish technology firm Nagami made its official debut with a pioneering project, combining computational design and large-scale robotic 3D printing

Nagami’s exhibition, titled ‘Brave New World: Design in the New Age of Technology’ showcased four works of 3D-printed furniture, created in collaboration with three cuttting edge Design studios.

The collection’s name, Brave New World, is based on the 1930s dystopian novel of the same title by Aldous Huxley.

The ever-closer ties between design and technology explore new combinations, where the machine fits naturally into the creative process.

Nagami, which s based in Ávila, Spain.was founded by Manuel Jimenez García, Miki Jimenez García, and Ignacio Viguera Ochoa, and is focussed on the incorporation of 3D printing into product design and manufacture.

” We design products that until now were just waiting for the right technology to come to life: not only objects that you can hold, but also that you can feel and experience as part of your environment.

As 3D printing techniques exert an ever-growing influence on the way we envision design, the exhibition Brave New World: Re-thinking Design in the New Age of Technology provides a glimpse of tomorrow’s most promising tech-savvy design products,” ……….. Nagami

While technological advances have made it a lot easier—and cheaper—for artists to see their visions come to life, they have also had another significant consequence: artists can now conceive structural forms previously considered unimaginable.

Through the color gradients used in designing the two 3D printed chairs, and the strangely beautiful patterns they form, Nagami intended to redefine the traditional spatial relationship between furniture and its setting.

Nagami crafts every detail from the early conception of a product, to the software that brings it to life, officially launched in Milan with the presentation of –

Two chairs, Bow and Rise, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, a stool by British designer Ross Lovegrove called Robotica TM, and the Peeler chair by London architect and designer Daniel Widrig

Nagami’s exhibition is more than just a showcase of created works — it is a statement.

The design world is now an experimenter’s market, with technology and design both informing one another in a symbiotic give-and-take. With designers using the technologies of the time to realise visions they never could have before, the field of technology too finds itself being pushed through greater limits.

( l-r) Ross Lovegrove, Patrick Schumacher, Daniel Widrig, Manuel Jimenez García, Miki Jimenez García, and Ignacio Viguera Ochoa, seated Claudia Pasquero

Ross Lovegrove sitting on his Robotica TM chair

Patrick Schumacher ( Zaha Hadid Architects ) with the Rise chair

It is perfectly embodied in the almost hypnotic movement of the robotic arm by Nagami, wit the arm featured in a video projected at Spazio Thera, in Piazza Castello

The robot chisels the details with a care that mimics craft skills and sculpts objects such as Robotica TM by Ross Lovegrove, a sort of organically shaped table-stool, the Peeler chairs by Daniel Widrig, Rise, in the semblance of a coral, and Bow, which involves a special process to print a decoration on it, designed by Studio Hadid.

These are objects stemming from a truly unprecedented meshing of creative processes and technology, as suggested by the exhibition title, “Brave New World”.

3D Printed Pieces

The products on display at Nagami’s pop-up showroom, in the dynamic Brera Design District (Spazio Theca, Piazza Castello, 5), explore new ways of creating furniture that push the limits of imagination to unseen territories.

Negami’s first collection features four 3D-printed chairs by “Bow and Rise” by Zaha Hadid Architects, “Robotica TM” by Ross Lovegrove and “Peeler” by Daniel Widrig.

In four chairs, the brand crafts every detail from the early conception of a product, to the software that brings it to life.

1 Inspired by Nature by Zaha Hadid Architects ( UK )

Patrick Schumacher and Sebastian Andia from Zaha Hadid Architects present two pieces at the exhibition: Bow and Rise, both conceptual pieces that imitate the structures commonly found in nature: think a seashell or a leaf.

These forms are inspiring for their structural optimisation — an idea that can only truly be replicated with 3D printing technology.

Both pieces are made with tinted PLA plastic.

Design description

Bow and Rise are the latest results of the extensive, ongoing research that Zaha Hadid Architects is conducting within the domains of 3D printing and material experimentation.

These chairs combine pristine design informed by structural optimisation processes typically found in nature, with innovative materials and the most advanced fabrication methods.

The pattern and the colour gradient of both pieces concur in redefining the traditional spatial relationship between furniture and its setting.

Bow and Rise have been printed with a pellet-extruder employing raw plastic particles rather than a filament.

The chosen plastic is PLA, a non-toxic, biodegradable material from renewable sources such as corn-starch, which ensure lightness and stability.

The Bow and Rise chairs were printed via a pellet-extruder using raw particles made of biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA) materials from renewable sources—such as corn starch—that also provide lightness and stability,

The outer shell of the 46″-tall Bow chair is tinted in opaque black while the inside is a translucent pink; the 42″-tall Rise chair combines translucent aquamarine with an orange interior.

Each piece borrows both structural and aesthetic elements from nature, according to the firm.

2 Intelligent Design by Ross Lovegrove ( UK )

Ross Lovegrove, whose tech-forward designs have always taken inspiration from natural, organic forms, adds a touch of botany to the exhibition with Robotica TM, a stool that can double up as a table, a plinth or even a stand-alone sculpture.

The piece is built from a rotational geometry in PLA plastic and TPE tinted in light grey and orange; the function is intuitive, but the form is immediately striking for its futuristic take on intelligent organic structures.

Design description

Robotica TM takes form at the convergence of two fields – botany and robotics – to coin a new approach to design that crystallises the natural programming in nature with that of robotics within artificial manufacturing. Built from a rotational geometry,

Robotica TM presents an indirectly intelligible function.

Thanks to its adaptable character, the high stool, which has 360° formal access, can also perform as a table upon which to place food that has just been taken out of the oven, due to its heat-proof silicone inserts in the seat, or as a plinth for a sculpture-TV, or even as a stand-alone aesthetic object, fulfilling any ancillary needs within a home.

The high stool, built from “rotational geometry”, is designed to be accessible from any angle and performs multiple functions as a table or a sculptural plinth.

The stool features silicone inserts allowing the placement of hot objects, such as dishes just out of the oven.

It measures 445x445x758mm.

3 Economy of Scale by Daniel Widrig ( Germany )

Architect Daniel Widrig, who has previously collaborated with Materialise to design 3D printed wearable sculptures, has produced the “Peeler” chair.

Essentially, Widrig’s studio has managed to craft a piece that not only economises the production process, but also makes for mindful, osteopathic design.

Peeler, is a chair, 3D printed in 7mm-thick shells of PLA so as to make the most of the ergonomics of printing mechanism.

What’s more, the sleek, curvaceous form is a nod to the ergonomics of the human form as well.

Nagami says the Peeler’s undulating and skin-like surfaces are the result of the intersection of “human and machine requirements”.

Printing the chair takes just a few hours.

The chair is 3D printed using PLA and TPE in a shelled structure featuring 7mm thick walls and measuring 670 x 570 x 880mm.

Design description

Peeler has been conceived to overcome the limits of additive manufacturing, thus far serving small niche markets.

The chair has been designed to satisfy both the ergonomic constraints of the human body, as well as the ergonomics of the robotic arm that prints it.

Winking at mass production, it is 3D printed in single 7mm thick shells of PLA by an industrial robot in just a few hours, consuming a small amount of machine time with minimum waste of material.

Consisting of three undulating skinlike surfaces, Peeler emerges out of a convergence of human and machine requirements.”

Nagami Lecture Series Salone 2018

Nagami’s Manuel Jimenez García ( l) with Patrick Schumacher (c) and Daniel Widrig (r)

Introduction for keynote speaker Patrick Schumacher ( Zaha Hadid Architects )

During the entire Milan Design Week, the Nagamin Milan showroom became a vibrant hub for innovation and technological advancements, hosting a series of lectures pertaining the world of computational design, technology and its applications.

Speakers include designers featured in the show: Patrick Schumacher, Ross Lovegrove and Daniel Widrig, as well as internationally renowned architects, artists and engineers, such as Isaie Bloch, Claudia Pasquero, Arturo Tedeschi, and many more.

Patrick Schumacher

Ross Lovegrove

“ We need the designer’s mind and that of the algorithm, which includes the complexities of mathematics. You create in the air, without a mould. In this way I would like to give life to new species, new forms that never existed before.” ………………. Ross Lovegrove