The aim of the xylem project was to investigate the possibilities of digital fabrication technologies and computational design methodologies. The xylem project is neither a table, a bench or a stool; it’s a family of objects which can be co-designed by the clients, using a custom built software, to best suit their needs and tastes.

The software, developed in Processing, is designed in order to allow the modification of the xylem’s shape by the users. In order to generate the table and ensure a safer use for users I’ve used three mathematical principles. The Convex Hull and the Voronoi Diagram are direct responsible for the table shape, while the physical simulator is used to guarantee a minimum border length of 15 cm.

The creative process is divided in three phases. In the first phase the user can design the top surface by dragging the control points of the shape. The resulting wire structure is based on the Voroni diagram, that guarantiees an uniform distribution of the elements in the space, and it’s both a decorative motive of the top surface and the origin of the legs. In the second step the user can check the object in a 3D space and change legs proportions. In the last step it’s possible to choose among a range of different materials and colors and place the order.

Each xylem is fabricated on demand using digital fabrication machinery. The top surface is milled and the voronoi lines filled with colored resin; legs are watercut out from 5mm thick aluminium foil and then painted.

You can download the software for Windows, MacOS, or Linux, and try to co-create your own Xylem.

The Voronoi diagram is a special subdivision of the space that is based on a given a set of points (or seeds).

If evaluated on a bidimensional space for every single points in the plane a cell is created so that is boundaries are the closest possible to the given point than every other point in the plane.

This kind of tessellation is used in a lot of different application spacing from wireless network analisys to polymer physics and robot navigation; and in recent days have been wide used for a vast number of architectural and design projects.

During the development of my thesis project i’ve had the chance to explore this kind of tessellation. In order to analize the esthetic qualities of the diagram; I’ve wrote a small software in Processing that evaluate the tessellation of a squared plane using as seeds a set of points that are recursively generated on a circular pattern. The software allow to change the number of points on the circle, the number of the iteration and the scale factor of the circles

The applet is based on the mesh library created by Lee Byron.

You can play with the applet here.

In order to expand the flexibility of the cooking system, the cooktop have been splitted in to two elements: a smart surface ( which features the control interface and the power system) and the tiles ( which take the place of the burners).

Taking advantage of WiTricity the tiles can be arranged and grouped freely on the cooktop, in order to manage in a personal way the location and the dimension of the burners, as well as use the surface itself in different way, like for cutting the ingredients.

The interface is designed to be as much flexible as possible and to allow progressive levels of customization. It is possible to use the system as a regular cooktop; to chose among a series of default cooking programs or to create a custom program to best suit the users personal needs.

Press release.

The interior proposes solutions which improves the management of all the components and functions. So to clean the interior, you can easily wash it with a buckets of water, thanks to the introduction of elastic and grip surfaces; the use of technological materials, taken from bionic research and the interior coating that was inspired from lotus leaf, to allows the water to flow away easily with dust.

The rear of the car presents innovative elements of loading luggage into the car.For example, the floor of the rear is filled with small balls, when the rear is open, these balls move freely allowing easy loading and unloading of luggage. When the rear is closed, the balls do not moves which helps the luggage still and secure.

The information management of the car belong to two interfaces on the dashboard. This panel can move freely left and right.

The exterior of the vehicle is characterized with two headlamps with an anthropomorphic look. The fog lights been designed in a linear way. An immediately noticeable feature on the car is the large glass surface, this allows more light to enter the interior and better visibility of the cars surroundings, for the driver and passengers.

I firmly believe that communication have to be a bilateral exchange; in order to made this feasible the receiving subject have to be able to answer, in an elastic way, to ours imput. To allow such exchange with an artificial device such as a mobile-phone, it have to be able to supply both physical and virtual answers to our actions; in order to adapt itself to our needs and moods, in an automatic and effective way.

Technology such as GPS and bluetooth are integrated in this device in order to made it able to recognize where we are and adapt itself to our needs. For instance through GPS it will be able to know if we are at home, at work or on the road and change it’s interface in accordance with the different location and our preference (you don’t need quick link to GPS while laing on your sofà at home).

The three-dimensional interface, is based on an half-sphere, such spatial disposition infact offers endless possibilities of personalization and virtual expansion of the interface. In order to achieve an immediate perception of the three-dimensional space, the screen surface is convex.