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A hand dropping a peach into the PLArt fruit bowl, a shell of fused silver rings

Material experiment 2022

PLArt

An experiment with PLA. Rings printed in 3D are laid out in a pattern, softened with a clothes iron over an object, and keep its shape once they cool.

Role Designer, photo and video

Team

01 // THE EXPERIMENT

Bending the filament

PLArt tests PLA filament outside the printer. We printed flat rings, then worked them with heat and by hand, to see how far the material bends and what shape it holds once it sets.

02 // THE PROCESS

From a pattern to an object

Every piece starts flat, as a pattern of rings. It becomes an object only when the rings are heated over a form.

A compass drawing a large circle on paper

01

Trace

A compass marks out the pattern on paper.

Silver PLA rings laid out by hand in a star pattern on a wooden table

02

Arrange

The printed rings are laid out by hand to follow it.

A clothes iron pressed over the rings through baking paper

03

Heat

A clothes iron softens the rings over an object or a form, and the pattern takes its shape.

Close-up of the edge of a bowl, where the rings are fused together

04

Set

As it cools the PLA hardens, and the object keeps that shape.

03 // THE OBJECTS

The same rings, other shapes

Each object was heated over a different form, so the same printed rings became a bowl, a tray or a vase.

The PLArt fruit bowl lying on its side, with peaches inside

Fruit bowl

The large PLArt vase and the shadow of its rings

Large vase

The small PLArt vase on a grey background

Small vase

The PLArt bottle holder, a half-round lattice of fused strips

Bottle holder

The PLArt tissue holder, a row of upright silver loops

Tissue holder

04 // THE FAMILY

Five objects

The whole range side by side: a fruit bowl, a tray, a large and a small vase, and a tissue holder.

The PLArt fruit bowl, cut out

The PLArt tray, cut out

The large PLArt vase, cut out

The small PLArt vase, cut out

The PLArt tissue holder, cut out

05 // IN USE

With fruit, plants and glass

We photographed the pieces with the things they hold, so the scale is easy to read and the rings throw their shadows on the table.

Two hands around the fruit bowl, lit from the side

A hand dropping cherries into the PLArt tray

A cactus in a clay pot wrapped in a PLArt sleeve, next to three cherries

A dark PLArt sleeve between a glass and a bottle

A cactus stem resting across the fused loops of a PLArt piece

06 // THE SPOT

Fifteen seconds

A short visual ad for PLArt. I shot and edited it.