Each piece of rock in nature reveals several million years of geological history. Various characteristics of each stone vein, such as the directionality of layers, the colour, the porosity, and the hardness, all together create a distinctive visual identity that pictures the way a piece of stone has been formed. How can we benefit from this uniqueness through studying, retrieving and analyzing of these physical and visual data and use them as generative inputs to the design process of a table?
Stone Trace Table is a project that utilizes the design-to-production technologies such as photogrammetry, 3D scanning, visual data processing, algorithmic design and digital fabrication in order to make a generation of bespoke stone tables. Hence, the initial input of the design-to-production process is the image of a unique stone slab that has been captured through 3d scanning, which then it is processed using algorithmic design methods.
By processing the 3D scanned data, the developed algorithmic design system consider a range of functional requirements, fabrication constraint and potentialities as well as aesthetic preferences to have variations of stone tables as multiple possible final products.
The output number 08 is a 240x160mm table in 3 parts with oblique cuts. The porosities on the table are the result of processing the 3D scanned data and extracting the stripe pattern of the selected slab, which is coming from Aligudarz region in Iran. Folding the two-dimensional slab and aligning the holes with the stone pattern creates a unified three-dimensional object. Eventually, with the purpose of being able to use the table for different arrangements, this unified body of the table is split into three different scales of small, medium and Large.
