Designer Phillippe Malouin Unveils 3D Printed Bowl on the Homeware Design Shop Othr

Last month, during New York City’s widely celebrated and prestigious Design Week, a new collaboration was formed to bring emerging technologies and an artistic touch to the realm of homeware products. The new design collective, called Othr, was founded by designers Joe Doucet, Dean Di Simone, and Evan Clabots, all of whom have joined forces to create this creative hub for unique ideas and original, artistically-driven product design. Recently, Othr added their newest design, a 3D printed bowl created by Canadian designer Phillippe Malouin, his second design featured on their curated product line.

The bowl design, which Malouin has called the Connection Bowl, manages to provide both a simplistic hemispherical bowl shape and a unique balance-inducing mechanism attached to the base. These two flat vertical panels attached to the base of the bowl act to stabilize the bowl and provide a handle. The bowl is available in either 3D printed steel or porcelain, both of which come with a matte black metallic finish. Malouin seems to have envisioned a bowl that appears traditional at first glance, but upon a further look proves itself to be much more intricately designed and functional than first impressions might show.

“We focused on those types of connections, which are often invisible to the untrained eye,” said Malouin. ”But when you stop and focus on the object and really look at it, you find out how interesting and intricately made it actually is.”

The Connection Bowl can either be purchased for $245 in steel or $55 in porcelain, both of which are available on the Othr website. Malouin’s design is currently being shipped throughout the United States and Canada, and will soon be made available to those located outside of North America. The numbered series—like all other Othr products—are 3D printed on-demand as soon as they are ordered. The 3D printed steel takes approximately two to three weeks to produce and ship, while the 3D printed porcelain bowl ranges from four to five weeks.

The design of the Connection Bowl follows suit with the first design Malouin featured on Othr, a small steel container called the Connection Vessel. In fact, Othr has three principles that they require their products to follow, all of which are covered by Malouin’s Connection Bowl. Each Othr product must be useful, aesthetic, and unique all at once, which has led to a product line that is as fit for your kitchen table as it is a museum exhibit. Othr plans to release a new product on their website every two weeks, and also features an array of work from other renowned designers, including Todd Bracher, Michael Sodeau, and the design collective Everything Elevated, just to name a few.

Malouin, who is currently based out of England, graduated from Design Academy Eindhoven back in 2009. Currently positioned as the director of architecture and interiors design for the firm Post-Office, Malouin has led the way on a wide-range of design projects, including the UK headquarters for the skincare brand Aesop. At Post-Office, Malouin seems to use the same regimen as he has with his Connection Bowl design, focusing primarily on simplicity and elegance. By fusing together traditional design with the process of 3D printing, the designer has shown that both vintage design and contemporary technologies can not only co-exist, they can also create products that manage to be both practical and aesthetically pleasing. Discuss in the 3D Printed Connection Bowl forum over at 3DPB.com.