Design Research | Stacking Plates 2

Various views of the “ripple” lock that imposes a specific position for each plate added to the stack.

Design Research | Stacking Plates 3

View of stack of plates with a visually continuous image all around each high foot on each plate.

Design Research | Stacking Plates 4

Other view of stack of plates. Another visual code is inserted with a digitally printed ceramic decal, inside each plate, creating a numbered sequence, here one to six. Each dot signifies the order in which to stack the plates to create the completed image found on the “cylindrical” form imbedded within the stack. See video animation for demonstration. The concept of the stacking plates consists in displacing the expected decoration on plates from the interior well or wide flat rim, to the exterior, here the high foot. Each plate requires an interior ridge to receive the foot of each plate added to the stacked set and also a locking device (the “ripple” extending on the rim). Both this ridge and the ripple impose a specific location for each added element. The ripple also conveys tactile sensation and information that directs the user and suggest the desired behavior.

Double walled cup | 1

For images of the finalized artwork click HERE

First sketches showing the oval form, rotated 90 degrees between the exterior shape and the interior insertion. The basic shape is inspired by the previously ubiquitous, stackable styrofoam coffee cup. The rotation of the two shapes, one inserted into the other, creates a insulating double-walled concept, modifying the final aesthetic of the source object substantially.

Double Walled Cup Video

Double walled cup | 2

Virtual rendering of the cup

Double walled cup | 3

Other view showing the squeezing of the cylindrical shape at the base and at the top, at a 90 degree angle to each other.

Double walled cup | 4

Some of the first cast bone china cups. The cups are lined up side by side as a continuous surface. The intent is to create a visually complex yet conceptually simple (a cylinder squeezed at both ends at a 90 degree angle) that could easily receive a digitally printed ceramic decal (a rectangular image), This image could be altogether continuous all around each cup or again, continuous as well when the cups are lined up side by side in a certain position, dictated by the shape, and order, dictated by the surface image.

Please see the video animation to visualize the rotation of the parts when they are assembled after being independently cast. The rotation to insert the interior shape into the exterior form permits to maximize the interior volume, while maintaining sufficient distance between the two walls to enhance the insulating potential.

Klein | cup 1

In 1882, Felix Klein (1849-1925) imagined combining two Moebius strips to create a single sided bottle with no boundary. This creates a volume where the interior and the exterior are one continuous surface. No inside and no outside. It contains itself, basically. My interest in containers and in ceramic objects as well as in containment as a concept, is informed by nearly 40 years of working in ceramics, mostly as a potter, as a maker of functional and decorative pottery forms, made by hand or using other analog processes. The Klein bottle concept seemed to be an ideal form to begin the present investigation. The problem consists in creating a ceramic form with a ceramic surface that both could only be made using Computer Assisted Design (CAD) and Computer Assisted Modeling (CAM) technologies.

Klein | cup 2

At first, simple sketches on paper were made to investigate this potential of transforming the basic concept of the Klein bottle into ceramic forms and objects, here a cup.

Klein | cup 3

The form designed was based on a cup shape where the “neck” of the Klein bottle becomes the handle for the cup and the “opening” on the side of the bottle becomes the interior well of the cup itself. This solution creates another opening connected to the handle, inside the double walled cup.