A completed TopoTopo puzzle reminds me of a cross between Conor O’Kane’s 3D printed map of Ireland, created using a Cocoon Create 3D Printer and digital topographic data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), and these charming LOCKNESTERS 3D animal puzzles. It features unlimited complexity of terrain, and combines it with open source data, customization, and a rapid production pipeline. Plus, puzzles have a rather unique and universal appeal, starting from when you’re three and putting together those children’s puzzles with giant block animal shapes, to when you’re an adult and trying as hard as you can to solve that near impossible mathematical puzzle.HUSH founding partner and Creative Leader David Schwarz says, “Places have meaning. Geography and topography are often the backgrounds to our experiences. They are the setting in our own life stories. The physicality of a place represents the scene and all of our experience play out against that scenography.”
“Traditional puzzles range in complexity. Appealing to all ages, puzzles can take on diverse forms, are typically low cost and easily portable. Yet, even with the amazing longevity of the puzzle, few have taken advantage of the modern digital toolset or customization through real-time, cloud-based information,” explained Schwarz.
I wanted to try the TopoTopo interface out for myself, and see if it was really as user-friendly as it sounds. Good news: it absolutely is! Bad news, at least for me: Cozumel was a poor choice, as it is very flat. I even tried experimenting with the height, and it did not help. I typed in a couple of other locations to see what they would look like, including my family’s annual vacation destination, the small town of Suttons Bay, Michigan. That had a few more hills, but I wanted to see what a really mountainous region would look like. So I typed in the Smoky Mountains, and presto, hills for days! I also tried the puzzles in one big piece, a 3×3 grid of nine smaller pieces, and a 5×5 grid of 25 even smaller pieces.
You also have the option of saving your TopoTopo to your Twitter or Facebook account, right from the page! If you want to buy one, you can send your model to HUSH’s 3D printing partner Shapeways, and choose to have it 3D printed in polished gold, colored plastic, or sandstone. TopoTopo, on top of being just really cool, and as easy to use as a quick Google Maps search, also represents a very meaningful expression of HUSH’s design culture, and way of seeing the world, just in time for Christmas.
Schwarz asks, “How can we capture the experience of a place and preserve it? How can we access a memory of place? A digital-physical puzzle seemed to be a good challenge to take on these questions, while also leveraging our passion for data, design and physical building.”
This awesome project is just the latest of several really cool and innovative things HUSH has come up with, including their dizzying “Made By Numbers” data sculpture and “Releases,” where hundreds of collaborators recorded themselves saying the word ‘release’ and a piece of software generated unique, 3D forms based on the timbre and tonality of each spoken word. Discuss in the TopoTopo forum at 3DPB.com.