3-D JEWELRY I FEATURE
Architecture grads see their own cool jewelry as just an example of what’s to come
UW grads put architectural skills to creative use.
AN ARRAY of pendants, earrings and bracelets sits atop a work table in a cooperative studio for artists in Toronto’s west end. A laptop computer is there too, and beside it, a 3-D printer. The printer whirrs quietly behind the chatter of its owners, Matt Compeau and Bi-Ying Miao, as a glue gun-like nozzle moves left to right inside the machine’s open walls, squeezing thin layers of plastic on to a small platform.
“It’s drawing 2-D profiles, layering them on top of each other and gradually building a 3-D object,” explains Compeau of the printer’s movements.
Introduced nearly three decades ago, 3-D printing is now going mainstream, and Miao and Compeau, University of Waterloo architecture graduates, are among those leading the way, re-inventing manufacturing >>
>> and fashion as they go.
The young entrepreneurs use the printer — and their architectural skills — to create “wearable art” for Hot Pop Factory, their innovative jewelry brand and 3-D printing company. Within a year of its launch, Hot Pop has become a full-time, growing business.
“It started as a side project, and it’s been gradually — well actually it’s been really quickly — ramping up,” Miao says.
But the pair are also curious about the 3-D printer’s potential to empower individuals. In the fashion world, for example, Miao sees 3-D printing as the beginning of an exciting revolution that could shift the focus from the prescriptive nature of runway trends to the hands of the creative consumer.
“We’re passionate about the technology because it empowered us to do something that would have been impossible five years ago — which is bring a product to market with no money,” says Compeau. “We want to be able to share that ability with other people.”
On this day, the white, triangular object on the printer’s platform begins to resemble a necklace pendant from Hot Pop Factory’s first jewelry collection, Stratigraphia, launched for online sales last summer.
Within the hour, the pendant will be ready to be strung with a chain and placed in a box for shipment to a customer.
In comparison to the studio’s milling and laser-cutting machines, the 3-D printer is an unassuming size. It is smaller in length than the average countertop microwave oven, is only slightly taller and weighs about 15 pounds.
Miao and Compeau, who are 26 and 27 respectively, were introduced to 3-D printing early in their careers while working at architecture firms, an industry in which the technology is commonly used to create models of buildings.
With 3-D printers decreasing in price and growing in accessibility, they were intrigued by the technology’s applications outside of architecture. They bought their own printer, a $2,000 Makerbot Replicator, and began experimenting.
The jump from architecture to jewelry design isn’t as far off as it may seem, says Compeau. They use many of the same design and technology skills for their 3-D printing projects as they used to design buildings.
On his website, www.emergentforms.com, Compeau writes that his “passion lies at the
intersection between virtual and physical spaces,” an idea that is at the heart of his interest in 3-D printing technology. “You can take objects from the physical world, bring them into the computer world, do your design work, and plop them back out through the 3-D printer,” he says. “It’s this really cool notion of remixing physical things.” The scale of objects that can be made on their printer is still relatively small, and jewelry, they found, was the perfect place to start. “We were interested in how a product made by this very niche technology could become mainstream,” says Miao. “A way to reach the general public is making something that is very intimate to the human body, something that defines your identity, and is practical to make with this new technology.” Using their laptop, printer and the Internet, Compeau and Miao spend their working hours designing in their apartment living room and testing, printing and modifying prototypes at this off-site studio for artists. They are using the technology for more than just wearable art. They’ve designed and printed sculptures for the Textile Museum of Canada, including a reinterpretation of the classic Eames chair, which they used as vertebrae in a sculpture of a spinal column. Both Compeau and Miao have pushed aside their architecture careers to concentrate on the expansion of Hot Pop Factory. “We’ve been really focused on not just selling our product but making experiences,” says Compeau. Armed with the mission of exploring the practical manufacturing potential of 3-D printers, Compeau and Miao are trying to close the gap between consumers and the technology by engaging them in the creative process. They offer 3-D printing workshops >>
>> and tote their printer around Toronto to different events. In a typical workshop, people are invited to design, print and take home something of their own creation. No previous 3-D printing experience is necessary.
“People are dumbfounded by the technology if they’ve never seen it before,” says Compeau. “There’s an educational bit we have to go through with them, just communicating what they’re looking at before we even talk about the product. Kids love it.”
At a Valentine’s Day event organized in collaboration with Toronto clothing store Untitled & Co., Compeau and Miao took 3-D photos of couples, downloaded the photo to their computer, and transferred it to the printer. Attendees took home a bust or bobblehead of themselves.
Pez dispensers personalized with individual faces, made for a custom order, have also caught people’s attention.
“We love doing stuff like that,” says Compeau, “because it gets people excited, it gets them engaged, and we get to work with them and draw on their creativity.”
At the Make Den Sewing Studio, artisans can make their own buttons for sewing projects using the Hot Pop Factory printer. Compeau and Miao have also worked with Ladies Learning Code, a non-profit organization that seeks to connect women and men with technological skills. This experience helped fuel their mission to make the technology accessible to anyone who is interested.
“What drove this jewelry was mainstreaming a technology that is very niche, and was pretty male dominated,” says Miao. “(Hot Pop Factory) is about liberating it from that. It’s so cool that everyone should know about it.”
The jewelry pieces are designed using code and computerized using CAD (computer aided design) software. Though Hot Pop Factory customers are mainly women, the geometric nature of their designs and the excitement around the technology has fostered a broader appeal, says Miao.
The couple’s latest collection, titled Boreal, is printed from a mixture of cherry wood sawdust and polymer plastic, something they believe is a first for 3-D printing.
Miao often wears Hot Pop Factory designs. During this interview, white earrings from the couple’s Platonix collection dangle from each earlobe, and a black bracelet from the same collection adorns her left wrist.
“I’m a big fan of very sculptured things, very textured things, making patterns, and mathematical esthetics,” says Miao. “We work with numbers a lot, so the geometry that comes out of that is inherently tied to those relationships. That drives the esthetics.”
To Compeau and Miao, the texture of a 3-D printed object also has a metaphorical meaning. To them it represents the idea of a grassroots movement bringing 3-D printing to the masses, an idea that has the potential to change the way people live, create and shop.
This is where the “factory” part of their name comes from. Miao and Compeau are exploring what they believe will be a shift in manufacturing away from mass consumerism towards mass customization.
“Since there is no mould (with a 3-D printer), there is no need to ever make the same object twice,” says Compeau. “Everyone can have some design input.”
Hot Pop Factory designs and prints each of its pieces with slightly different variations. In terms of fashion, Miao believes there may be a shift away from runway trends to a more accepted notion of individual style.
“Fashion is built on creating identities that are bigger and better than yourself, or ones that enhance your personality,” says Miao.
“Being able to involve the customer in the design experience and allow them to have a piece of themselves reflected in the piece that they’re buying almost transcends what fashion is now. This technology can possibly enhance what fashion does for people, and also free it from the consumerism and economic machine behind it all.”
Like Compeau, Miao has taken to the web to express her thoughts on the technology’s potential. In an April 2012 blog post, she
wrote: “I gotta say, the prospect of having what I want without spending any of my hard-earned money, feeling guilty about it, and eating toasted bagels for a week after, is practically every girl’s dream!” As 3-D printing technology becomes more accessible, the potential for individuals to print objects in their own homes is becoming more and more probable, but Compeau and Miao aren’t concerned about losing customers.
“That’s the exciting part about it,” says Compeau, unfazed by the fact that others may be able to copy their work. He and Miao have already uploaded some of their older designs to open-source websites, and have seen interpretations of their jewelry by other 3-D printer users across the globe.
“There’s also a whole new market opportunity there,” he says. “If 3-D printers are popularized and people can just download our designs like an MP3, that’s fantastic.”
Eventually, Miao and Compeau would like to venture into additional markets like housewares, and at some point back to the scale of architecture. In the meantime, they are working on a men’s collection and aim to continue collaborating with local business startups.
Their designs are available online via their website, and are also for sale at a handful of Toronto boutiques including Kid Icarus, Untitled & Co., The Make Den, and Ransack the Universe.