This final semester I’m taking a course called Experimental Form: exploring form through mountains of sketches and ideation and a handful of creations. Half sculpture, half product design; the idea of this course is to create beautiful, personal objects of function.

I’m spinning the class by incorporating as many programmatic elements as possible: parametric form, force-directed layouts, mathematical constructs, and data-driven form. I think there is a powerful opportunity there to create unique and interesting things. In mass-produced situations, these objects could be individually and personally unique.

Our first project was a quick one: a day to generate a concept and a day to build and photograph a model. The concept was a fruit platter generated by a circle-packing program built around the constraints of the platter.

Click the image to play with the template generator: press space-bar to randomly generate circles, click empty space to make a new circle, drag around existing circles. Click hold & press ‘z’ to delete.

From this program I export PDF files which are sent to a laser cutter, therefore each platter is unique. Ideally this product would be made from CNC milled porcelain.