All Photos By Gail

These days, furniture whose designs are conceived on a computer or transferred from other media can be wholly or partly made by digitally controlled machines. More recently, technology allows for the three-dimensional (3D) printing of a complete object, layer by layer, using powder or liquid resin.

This Fractal Table II (2007– 2009) designed by Platform —  a partnership of  German furniture designers  Gernot Oberfell and Jan Wertel, with Matthias Bar — is based on the form of the dragon tree (Dracaena). To develop the computer models for the table, the designers used mathematical algorithms to create a design which reproduced the fractal growth patterns found in tree’s branching structure.

A fractal is a geometric shape that can be split into parts, each part being a smaller copy of the whole. In manufacturing this table, it was the use of an additive digital technique that allowed the designers to reproduce these complex, repeating forms in 3D. The table’s complicated interlocking structure could not be easily built using other techniques.

Fractal II was manufactured using an additive digital ‘printing’ process known as Stereolithography. Thin layers (of about 0.1 mm) of liquid epoxy resin were spread on to a metal plate, in a sealed tank. After each layer had been spread, UV lasers were used to trace the form of the table in the liquid resin. Each area touched by the laser would harden to create one horizontal layer of the table. Those areas of resin not touched by the laser remained liquid, and fell away once the table was complete. As each layer was spread and lasered, it bonded to those beneath it. Through this process, the form of the table gradually grew.

It took 7 to 10 days for the hundreds of horizontal layers to be added. Once complete, the table was cleaned and put into a UV oven for ‘post-curing’  to further harden the resin. The clear epoxy resin was then dyed by putting the table into a pigment bath for one day. This table is Number 7 of an edition of 25.

Photographed in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.