Open source furniture?

Furniture & Lighting
Open source furniture?
OSFurniture.jpg

From Wired:

Your next piece of designer furniture could cost less than an Ikea chair–as long as you’re willing to make it yourself. Taking a cue from the Linux community and file-sharing services, Berlin-based design guru Ronen Kadushin has started a furniture free-for-all he calls Open Design. It allows crafty consumers to download the instructions, photos, and AutoCAD files needed to knock off his work.


Mod That Table: High-End Furniture Goes Open Source
[via EMS Labs Twiiter feed]

28 thoughts on “Open source furniture?

  1. Big Daddy Dave says:

    Please dont Make: me sit on that.

  2. Kirt says:

    “Open Design” or “FUBAR Design”?
    What is that an image of?

  3. Jared says:

    What the HELL is that supposed to be?

  4. Gareth Branwyn says:

    Why don’t people actually bother to look at the links before they post comments? If you do, you’ll see that it is a quite beautiful (in my opinion) stainless steel coffee table.

    1. MrCrumley says:

      Sorry Gareth, I looked at the link and “What the HELL” and “FUBAR” still apply. Some of the works are nice but that particular design is ugly.

      1. Gareth Branwyn says:

        Hey, personal taste. YMMV. And, of course, that particular design is not the point behind the post, that just happened to be the image that accompanied it.

  5. SKR says:

    You can’t get a copyright for furniture. You can get a patent for the manufacturing process but that’s it. That is why modernist designer chairs are everywhere, but everyone thinks they are just cheap plain designs. If you like a chair and can build it, go for it.

  6. SKR says:

    i forgot to mention the process would need to be novel. Also novel mechanisms can be patented as well.

  7. zweistein.myopenid.com says:

    Here are some pictures of the table that makes it easier to see the shape of it:
    http://www.ronen-kadushin.com/productZoom.asp?product_id=310

  8. SKR says:

    HURF DURF,

    hahahaha, I like your comment much better than mine.

  9. rob0 says:

    I know people like to apply the concept of “Open Source” to everything – but really this is silly.

    So all the free plans for furniture online were somehow not open source? This isn’t new, anyone could make their own chair already. Heck you can get tons of books from the library on furniture design – Thomas Moser published a book of shop drawings 2 decades ago. I got the book from the library and made a table – huh, I guess I was taking advantage of “Open Source” furniture.

    This is similar to saying you’ll create a hip new website that will “Open Source” the folding of a simple paper airplane.

    Also the original table design while a nice concept, would not suit most folks, the top is curved – when things roll/slide off your table you might regret all the effort you put in to making your Open Sourced table.

  10. Gareth Branwyn says:

    @Hurf Durf
    I deleted your comment, as it crossed the line. We have a “be nice” policy here, as I’ve told you before.

    You can get those kind of grade school yucks at the expense of others over on YouTube, but we find it counter-productive here. If you do it again, you will be banned from the site.

  11. lungofish says:

    I’ve downloaded a bunch of his designs – I like his fireplace candleholder. QCad opens the .dxfs nicely, there’s nothing weird in them like crazy splines or 3d surfaces, so just about anything will be able to gcode it.

    I’m going to see if I can get techshop’s plasma cnc to cut one or two out.

  12. Michael Fusion says:

    i like the idea ever since i saw it in wired, however the thing i don’t like about this design is that it is impractical as a table because it is curved. and from the shape of that curve it looks like a glass of wine would stand up safely in the exact center.

    hope you don’t have white carpets! or if you do, that you have a lot of salt!

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Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. His free weekly-ish maker tips newsletter can be found at garstipsandtools.com.

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