Cassiopeia
-Frosted Acrylic paired with Orange and Pink Acrylic, Waterjet Cut Steel, LED Strips-
With the focus of the assignment to be centered around "Our Nature", deciding to explore the creatures underwater lead to the interesting images of the jellyfish. This jellyfish table, named Cassiopeia, is made to show form of movement in the way a jellyfish moves underwater.
Process
When starting the ideation process, there were two versions of the Cassiopeia table that I had selected to decide on which one I would follow through to the creation process. One of them shows a jellyfish right-side up with what would have been its tentacles flowing across the table, while the second sketch shows an upside-down jellyfish. Its tentacles flowing upwards making the tabletop of the desk. I did a digital rendition of the table to have a clearer understanding on the color selection and introduced how the steel supports will visually look with the table. I also made a 3D render in Rhinoceros 3D while also deciding on the measurements (done in mm).
While in the creation process, I made a mold in where the body of the table would gain that curving shape. It was made out of MDF boards cut on a bandsaw. These pieces where then drilled and glued to a board to hold all the cuts together. To get the frosted acrylic to take the intended shape of the mold, I placed it in a heat bending machine to get it to easily take the shape of the mold when placed on top of the MDF boards.
These decorative pieces were to provide the table with more of a jellyfish look by illustrating its flowing frills.
The orange and pink acrylic sheets, were used for the frills of the jellyfish. To create these organic shapes, I exported the 3D file into an orthographic drawing to prepare the image to send be sent to get laser cut. The orange frills being used for decor on the body and the pink acrylic to decorate the "head", which is the bottom of the table, of the jellyfish. These pieces were then glued on with epoxy.
