Thrōn made Launches Kickstarter Campaign for 3D Printed Furniture Made with Recycled Material

This month, a small U.S. startup called Thrōn made launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for its collection of 3D printed sculptural furniture, with an emphasis on sustainable, eco-friendly solutions. As co-founder Sam Wesenick said in an email, the startup started the project this year “with a machine we needed to keep busy, launched by a small, dedicated team running an authentic Kickstarter without any big corporate support.” The team uses plant-based resin to print its furnishings, and also offers an option of furniture with recycled material blended in as well.

“This project aims to offer eco-friendly solutions while building a community,” Wesenick wrote.

The Thrōn made team is made up of desktop 3D printer enthusiasts, who eventually moved on to manufacturing and selling large-scale industrial printers. They specialize in fused filament fabrication (FFF) technology, as well as fused granular fabrication (FGF), or pellet printing. A few years ago, they 3D printed a chair to use strictly for advertising purposes, with no intention of selling the piece. They called the chair Thrōn, which is pronounced throne, “because these creations make you feel like royalty.” Flash forward a few years, and the startup loved their chair so much, they decided to share it, and design more 3D printed furniture as well.

Keeping the “Thrōn” name for the company, the first of three chairs in their collection is the Laakito Chair. It’s a fairly simple shape—the idea behind this chair is a basic box form, but reimagined as something on which to sit. That’s actually how the chair got its name: Laakito means “box” in Finnish. If you like to lean back in your seat, this might not be the chair for you, as there isn’t much of a back you can lean against. But I like this chair because I often sit with one foot tucked under the opposite leg (I’m doing it right now…) and I don’t typically lean back when I’m sitting like that. The Laakito appears to be hollow, which would make it very lightweight and easy to carry, and gives you a great built-in area to store blankets.

The chair gets its distinctive coloring because Thrōn made used a material blend that included 15% recycled plastic to print it. We’ll talk more about this later.

The thin Bergsto Chair was inspired by the classic Adirondack Chair, and has a much smaller footprint than the startup’s other 3D printed chairs. Because it doesn’t take up much space, you could easily fit several of them into a smaller space—they would be perfect apartment chairs.

The Larroa Chair appears to be the most comfortable of the three, with its wavy contours inspired by ocean waves.

I would buy the Minima Shelf in a heartbeat. It can double as an end table or nightstand as well, and the tall side would be perfect for keeping magazines, records, some thin pillows, or even an orchid in a vase. It also looks really sturdy, which is good when you have pets.

Speaking of which, as someone who owns three cats, I love the Mascota (“pet” in Spanish) Cat Home. With its modern design, it looks like it would fit well in any home, and the flat top gives kitties a great perch after their naps; plus, you can choose if you want a a pine top or a teak one. The cat house also looks nice and snug, with a small enough opening that my dogs couldn’t climb in after the cats!

All of Thrōn made’s furniture is made-to-order, so there’s not a bunch of 3D printed chairs taking up space in a warehouse somewhere. The startup says that whenever possible, they uses recycled, eco-conscious, or plant-based materials, and their furniture is available in a great selection of colors, including red, ocean blue, yellow, desert tan, bronze metallic, and more. The furniture also comes in a light gray and a dark gray, the latter of which is from the blend of recycled materials.

“Our Laakito Chair and Mascota Cat Home feature unique rainbow-like material, blending 85% plant-based fossil fuel-free plastic with 15% recycled material for that distinctive look,” a Thrōn made team member said in an Instagram video. “The recycled portion adds character, but bonds less due to age, so after testing we settled on 15% to balance strength and keep plastic out of landfills while maintaining consistency across pieces.”

What I love about 3D printed furniture is how much design flexibility the technology offers. You can make it as unique or traditional as you want, and this certainly isn’t the first time someone’s used recycled plastic to make sustainable furniture, which I appreciate. Compared to some of the pieces we’ve seen, Thrōn made’s inaugural 3D printed furniture collection is relatively normal-looking, with just enough pizzazz to take them closer to the edge.

The startup is hoping to raise $22,575, and has until October 25th to do so, which means there are plenty of rewards still available. For instance, you can get the Minima Shelf for the Super Early Bird rate of $149, which is a discount of 50%, or the Laakito Chair at a 75% discount for the Earliest Bird rate of $199. If they reach their funding goal, Thrōn made plans to develop furniture using a material that will do better outdoors for longer periods of time. Other goals include developing further home decor product ideas, such as plants and light fixtures, and investing in more industrial equipment, including large-scale pellet dryers.