Polyhedron Stool by Jin Woong Lee is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2021 Silver A' Design Award in 3D Printed Forms and Products Design Competition Category.
Silver3D Printing· 2021
Polyhedron Stool
Client: Pro-Sp
Silver A' Design Award Winner in 3D Printing Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #119389The Design
About Polyhedron Stool
The Polyhedron stool is a 3d printed stool that has an interaction of a closing flower. Except for one CNC processed metal component, every part is made through the 3d printer, allowing individuals to produce and reproduce themselves within small amounts (leading to numerous variations). When a flower sets, its petals gather (twirling inside). The ends go up, and the height gets changed. As grabbing its head, rotating the upper part makes pillars move and escalates the stool. The four gears inside convert circular move vertically, making the pillar's end rise.
The Recognition
About the Silver A' Design Award
Polyhedron Stool is a Silver A' Design Award winner, an extraordinarily prestigious recognition granted to top-of-the-line, gorgeous, and impressive designs. Silver winners are tremendously brilliant and exceedingly creative works that illustrate the outstanding expertise, talent, and acuity of their designers. Polyhedron Stool is expected to be a wonderful, showpiece work that is remarkably professional and profoundly innovative. This Silver A' Design Award-winning design is a highly notable, admired invention that benefits and advances the boundaries of art, science, design, and technology. Polyhedron Stool is a vastly envied creation that evokes desires, introduces positive feelings, and sparks amazement and wonderment.
Where to Get It
Innovative Product Design Services for Modern Spaces
We specialize in creating structurally innovative products that transform spaces through unique movements and interactions. Our expertise in 3D printing and advanced manufacturing enables us to develop furniture and objects that challenge conventional design, bringing distinctive character to any environment.
Discuss Your ProjectInterviews
Grand Interview
Your innovative approach to height adjustment in the Polyhedron Stool, inspired by closing flower petals, represents a fascinating merger of nature and technology - could you elaborate on how this biomimetic concept evolved during your design process?
The concept originated from observing how flower petals gather and rise as they close, creating an elegant, natural movement. I wanted to translate that organic gesture into a functional mechanism. During the ideation phase, I explored various structural principles that could replicate this motion, eventually developing a system where rotating the stool's head activates petal-like pillars to elevate the seat. This process reflects how nature’s efficiency and beauty can inform engineered solutions, resulting in a stool that adjusts height through a simple, intuitive, and visually engaging mechanism.
The Polyhedron Stool's unique combination of 3D printing with minimal metal components challenges traditional manufacturing paradigms - what insights did you gain about the future of furniture production through this hybrid approach?
This project highlighted how 3D printing enables a new level of flexibility and accessibility in furniture production. By minimizing reliance on traditional metal components, production becomes more adaptable to small-scale, customized manufacturing. I believe this hybrid approach points to a future where furniture is no longer bound to centralized mass production, but can be created locally, tailored to individual needs, and iteratively improved without the high entry barriers of conventional methods.
Your decision to make the Polyhedron Stool almost entirely through 3D printing enables individual reproduction and customization - how do you envision this democratization of production influencing the future of furniture design?
3D printing liberates furniture design from rigid production constraints. With the Polyhedron Stool, individuals can not only own but also participate in producing their furniture. This democratization empowers users to modify, reproduce, or repair pieces independently, fostering a culture of ownership and sustainability. I envision a future where furniture is more modular, adaptable, and deeply personal, with design evolving beyond consumption to collaboration between designer and user.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- The Polyhedron stool is a 3d printed stool that has a new way of controlling height. Except for one CNC processed metal component, every part is made through the 3d printer, allowing individuals to produce and reproduce themselves within small amounts (leading to numerous variations).
- Dimensions & Packaging
- 490mm X 470mm X 450mm, 300mm X 300mm X 680mm. The stool is composed of 20 different components (total of 36 pieces): one CNC processed metal part, three ready-made metal shafts, and sixteen 3d printed parts. Every part from the leg's metal shaft to a small magnet of the lock can be dismantled.
- Tags
- Polyhedron, Stool, 3d printed, Flower, Height adjustable
- Production Technology
- 3d printer: PLA - chrome plating & matte finishes, CNC Machine: stainless steel, ready-made components of aluminum shafts and pipes.
- Design Challenge
- 3d printer gives the benefit of easy and unconstrained production but has weak durability. As to print every component using the printer, it was challenging to make a stable and strong structure. To have the stable stool needed clean and simple assembly. Made multiple structural changes to lesson the components and used minimum ready-made materials (2 metal shafts and one aluminum pipe) to support and balance the weight.
- Research
- Tried to print clean and strong parts using an adequate amount of filaments. The percentage of infill determines not only the amounts of filaments but also the length of printing time. Besides simple factors like positioning, various circumstances influenced clean printing and led to multiple modifications.
- Inspiration
- Designing a product that has a simple production was the aim of the project. A product that can be easily accessed by not only the creator but also by individuals, leading to multiple variations of different tastes. A 3d printer is a manufacturing tool that allows making products with less amount and restrictions (limiting the design). Chose a stool as the starting item of a space, Polyhedron with a function of adjustable height that thought was the most required function that a stool needs.
- Project Duration
- The project started in June 2018 in Seoul, Korea, and ended in September 2018. With a major structural change, revised the project from March 2019 to July 2019.
- Operation Flow
- When the flower sets, its petals gather. The ends go up, and the height gets changed. At the stool, three pillars are attached to the head. As grabbing the bottom head, rotating the upper part make pillars gather and escalate the stool. The four gears inside the head convert circular move vertically, making the pillar's end rise. There is a lock below the head attached to a magnet and can be unlocked by simply pulling down.
- Patents
- Patented, 30-1001682, Jin Woong Lee, 2038.
- Image Credits
- Image #1-4: PRO-SP
Image #5: Photographer Yun Seo Choi, 2019
Video: PRO-SP
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