Modular Workspace and Organizational System
The working name for this Project/Product is Creators' Nest, and it was created during the senior studio class at RISD. Senior studio is a class limited to 14 students who have submitted project proposals that were approved by the heads of the department.
The project is about creating a modular workspace with built in organization and storage. This whole project has stemmed from my fascination with workspaces and how everyone's environment and process is unique. I am someone who has always been heavily affected by the space I work in, so this product aims to allow a maker to customize a piece of furniture that will adapt to the user. The product is meant to compliment a workshop with quality of life functionality and organization that conforms to one’s workflow. However in a home or office environment, it would bring workshop functionality to an environment that lacks tools and space to make and create.
Details
The project was designed in Rhino, and was built out of Laminated Baltic Birch Plywood and 3D printed Nylon
Year
Spring 2024
Final Product
Initial Proposal
I have always been obsessed with the perfect work space. Every persons' creative space needs to be different to fit the type of work they do and their individual choices. I want to learn about how makers organize their personal workspaces to make it work best for them. To do this I plan to research designers and makers’ workspaces and also interview industrial design staff members that I have had the pleasure to learn from for the past 4 years at RISD. I will document a spectrum of low-tech and high-tech designers to understand how their workspaces inform their workflow, and how they’ve optimized their space overtime. Using the information gathered during the research phase, the next phase will involve designing a product, styled from my point of view as a maker, to optimize workflow. These results of my research will come together in a product whose basis is to be a portable adaptable workspace with a built in organization.
The "Bone"
The name for the connection I came up with became "Bones." This came from the not only the shape, but the also the fact that these connections would be the fundamental pieces that would hold the system together. I went through a total of 13 versions consisting of different manufacturing techniques and materials. I originally had planned to use a CNC Router to cut them out, I tried Corian, Poplar and Birch plywood, but due to the nature of how the connection would be used, plastic became the clear answer due to its material memory, flexibility, as well as ease to manufacture. In an ideal world these Bones would most likely be two-part injection molded, however as a student I elected to use a 3D printer.
Using Bambu Labs' P1S I began printing prototype bones starting in PLA and PETG. The preliminary plastic models had trouble going in and out of the connection pockets, and pretty much had to be destroyed to get them out, however the connection itself worked. With just two bones on either side of two of the cubes, the cubes were locked solidly together. From this point I added fillets to the model, and tried two different options for relief channels in the part to allow for them to compress into the pockets, making the bones possible to remove, and a lot more durable. I also tried a nylon based 3D filament which seemed to be noticeably stronger.
