Draped Console is a prototype sideboard that translates the fluid language of fabric into layered plywood.
Draped Console is the result of an ongoing research project exploring the intersection between digital tools and handcrafted techniques.
The choice to explore the motif of drapery stems from a core statement: digital technologies — both additive and subtractive — offer an expanded formal spectrum. This potential calls for a reconciliation between the language of industry and the legacy of art history, opening up new expressive territories for contemporary design.
The drape motif — historically tied to gesture, contingency, and movement — operates in several registers. Physics simulation reveals how cloth might fall; art-historical observation uncovers canonical rhythms of pleat and counter-curve; stylized modelling translates both into a machine-readable surface.
Originally that surface was destined for large-scale metal 3-D printing, but when our WAAM partner shut down during the COVID crisis, the project was forced to pivot. Additive paths gave way to a subtractive, layered strategy that could be realized in-house on our CNC router. More than 400 slices of 10 mm maritime-pine plywood were milled, numbered, and vertically stacked to build the console’s undulating body.
ABOUT DRAPED