Solar Machine Spins Sunlight-Shaped Furniture

Mike writes "Austrian designers mischer'traxler have created a solar powered machine that makes an incredible array of furnishings that vary based on how much sunlight it receives over the course of a day. Titled 'The Idea of a Tree,' the machine spins spools of thread into stools, benches, containers, and lamp shades that wax and wane as the available sunlight shifts. Furniture created during cloudy winter days will be wrapped more slowly, causing it to be darker in color, thicker, and smaller than pieces created during the sun-soaked summer months."

Comments

some fugly furniture

[OrangeMonkey11]

interesting use of solar energy, but these are some ugly looking furniture

what kind of thread and resin is used in this?

[Anonymous Coward]

looks like an interesting DIY project, anyone know the specifics of the thread and resin used to do something like this?

Re:what kind of thread and resin is used in this?

[camperdave]

Here's a much more interesting and useful DIY project.

Re:No money in it.

[fiannaFailMan]

Seriously, this is more a piece of performance art than a manufacturing device.

And...?

Day 1, lesson 1 at critic's school. You cannot criticise something, be it a movie, book, song, painting, or a solar powered machine, for failing to do something it does not set out to do.

Was there anything in TFA that suggested that this thing was setting out to be an automated cash cow for mass producing furniture? I didn't see it.

Re:No money in it.

[Anenome]

Anything relying on commercial success for its continued existence needs to make a profit, yes.

This is a step forward in furniture in the sense that we one day want to have machines making everything for us from freely available energy and materials--all the way down to bio-engineering plants which can grow into customized shapes. Can you imagine a plant which grows the shape of a couch frame out of, say, oak? Bamboo and seaweed have super-fast growing genes. Why not create a way to grow the frame of a house rather than cut and shape it. Let nature do the work.