Interior Designer @karamanndesign commissioned @philippaduatz for a large collection of custom-made concrete furniture pieces for a private client in Chicago. The pieces had to be made out of 3D printed concrete based on white cement for a permanent outdoor environment and each to be produced in one piece with a minimum thickness. Philipp Aduatz cooperated for this job again with Austrian start-up @incremental3d.eu which produced his “Digital Chaiselongue” for Milan Design Week in 2018.
The biggest challenge and innovation for this project was to develop a suitable reinforcement technology to provide the load capacity for the design language of Philipp Aduatz. Concrete is by its nature a material with very little tensile strength; therefore, it should be reinforced. In this case, a customized semi-automatic strategy was developed. The required pay loads had been calculated, tested and proved by the high performance of a specific combination of glass fiber rods and carbon textile reinforcement. This was visually perfectly integrated into the design. The commission consisted of two large sofas, two chairs and a 24-foot-long bench divided into three segments.