During the course Digital Fabrication held by Marco Lurati in collaboration with Giovanni Profeta, this year’s MAInD students were assigned a really alluring task: to rethink and to reproduce an old iconic design object by mixing it with a current digital device, such as a phone or a tablet. Students could choose their favorite design product upon the condition that the original object was produced in the decades before 2000, when the Internet was just starting to be commonly used and smartphones still belonged to the far future.
The project brief further set a few more conditions regarding the form and functionality of the newly interpreted design icon. It still has to preserve its original function and appearance; however, it should be conceived as a physical object to which a digital and interaction component is added. To do so, the main function and the interaction component of the object can be simply replaced by a smartphone, whose screen serves as the main control interface thanks to the installation of applications or visuals on the device.
All the projects have been 3D modeled by using Fusion 360 (parametric CAD) and built using the lasercutter, the CNC milling machine and the 3D printer.