3DVisA Resources

3DVisA Index of 3D Projects: Product Design

Osteon Chair by Assa Ashuach

The Osteon chair has an organic form and bone-like internal structure, and this has been emphasised in the name (Greek osteon, bone). It was designed with 3D software, Autodesk^® AliasStudio^TM Tools, and manufactured using laser sintering and rapid prototyping. 'Complex technology helps to simplify design', says Ashuach in an interview published online by the Design Museum in London to accompany the exhibition Design Mart (January 2006). Digital technology was applied throughout the design and manufacturing process and has made straight lines and angles - common with traditional cutting tools - redundant. Ashuach's Upica sofa (2005) is another example of this approach: a flowing structure based on the analysis of the human form it is designed to support.

Fig. 1. Osteon chair by Assa Ashuach. Design and protype. © Assa Ashuach. Reproduced with kind permission.

The OMI.mgx lamp (2004) used similar technology. The lamp is characterised by translucent, zoomorphic forms that are reminiscent of an animal skeleton. The lamp may be bent to create a variety of shapes.

Fig. 1. OMI.mgx lamp by Assa Ashuach. © Assa Ashuach. Reproduced with kind permission.

The Omi.MGX lamp is a product of Ashuach's collaboration with the Belgian company Materialise, which specialises in Rapid Prototyping. OMI.mgx is the winner of the red dot award for product design 2006. This shows the appreciation and the acceptance of this new process among the traditional industry.

Assa Ashuach is a product and furniture designer based in London. Born and brought up in Israel, he studied industrial design at the Betzalel Academy in Jerusalem, and design at the Royal College of Art in London, from which he graduated in 2003. The Osteon chair was designed in 2005-06 while he was a Research Fellow at the Manufacturing Design Centre, Metropolitan Works, at the London Metropolitan University. The Centre is part of the Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media and Design, and specialises in 3D scanning and cutting, Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) Routing, rapid prototyping and other digital manufacturing technologies.

Sources and further details:

'Digital Explorers at the Metropolitan Works', The ICON Design Trail, The ICON Magazine's guide to the 100 best design events in London, 18-24 September 2006, p. 73.

Assa Ashuach's website (under construction).

Assa Ashuach at the Design Mart Exhibition, Design Museum, London, 14 January - 19 February 2006.

Omi.MGX pendulum light at the red dot design award website, 2006.

Record compiled by Anna Bentkowska-Kafel. Created: 11 September 2006. Last updated: 29 January 2007.

3DVisA gratefully acknowledges the help of Assa Ashuach with preparation of this record.

© Assa Ashuach and 3DVisA, 2006.