At Dutch Design Week one of the talented designers that make up the Virtual Making exhibit is Alexander Pelikan, better known as PeliDesign. I first came across his Plastic Nature furtniture in a catalogue and immediately loved it. His chairs, stool and table combine resin with wood to create a natural with synthetic ‘cyborg’ that is just absolutely amazing. I know I tend to use a lot of exclamation marks in my posts and can at times seem overly enthusiastic but I simply love this furniture. The smoothness of the resin combined with the wood give the desings a unique feel. I also love the juxtaposition of a natural material with a man made one.

Peli initially came up with this design for his graduation project for the Design Academy in Eindhoven. It is no surprise then that he would now be interested in 3d Printing and rapid prototyping. For our Virtual Making Exhibit for Dutch Design Week this year he became inspired by, “A machine’s perception.”

With 3d scanning equipment and 3d printing he showed that machines do indeed percieve and are less perfect than we imagine them to be. He experimented with different resolutions and printed out the results. From very fine reproductions to low resolution models you can see how machines percieve and be entertained by interesting shapes that will seem cartoon-y at times as well as all to familiar to 3d modelers out there. 

Look at the difference in the above ashtrays from realistic to angular. Or the jars to the right that range from a close copy of the original to something out of Scanner Darkly.

I hope that Peli, at least for a while, sticks to 3d printing and can not wait to see the results.