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SAN FRANCISCO - Gemini, a curvy wood cocoon chaise lounge made on a CNC routers and 3D printer, has been acquired by The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Gemini was created as a type of  acoustic furniture by Prof. Neri Oxman at MIT Labs, in collaboration with Prof. W. Craig Carter and Stratasys, a manufacturer of 3D printers. Le Laboratoire, in Paris, CNC milled the bent wood exterior curves, which surround an inner lining produced with Stratasys 3D printing technology.

Prof. Oxman says Gemini is intended as a semi-enclosed, stimulation-free environment designed to enhance vocal vibrations - thought to be healing - throughout the body. A biologically-inspired 3D printed skin lines the wooden chassis. The skin’s texture is an intricate design of tiny knobs, which provide comfort and maximize sound absorption. The combination of a CNC milled wooden shell and the 3D printed lining creates an acoustic setting for a single individual.

ARTICLE Award-winning furnishing designs: Top 3 globally A competition, reviewed by a panel of five designers that judged 233 entries from 34 different countries, selected three winners, along with 20 honorable mentions.

Gemini is also the first project to use Stratasys’ Connex3 triple-jetting technology. Combining three base materials – Stratasys’ rubber-like TangoPlus, rigid VeroYellow and VeroMagenta – the acoustic chaise included 44 different materials properties in varying shades of yellows and oranges with differing transparencies and rigidities, all produced simultaneously in a single 3D print. 

“No other manufacturing technology is able to provide such a variety of material properties in a single process,” says Naomi Kaempfer, Creative Director Art Fashion Design at Stratasys. “And that’s just one influencing factor in the recent growth we are seeing in museums advocating 3D printed artwork."

At the 2016 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland later this month, Prof. Oxman is scheduled to present new design work and will offer a glimpse to the future of manufacturing at the intersection of technology and biology.