Working with RLP Co., we wanted to showcase the extreme complexity that their novel silicone printing technology could handle. Working with Bjorn Sparrman, CTO, I designed a car seat based on BMW’s proprietary model, replacing classic pneumatic elements with bladders that are directly incorporated in the seat and the print.

We used a conformal lattice structure to populate most of the seat volume, tailoring the geometry of the unit cell to replicate the softness of foam. We incorporated two large actuators on either side to mimic the grabbing motion of race car seats. The design was made using Rhino and Grasshopper, and toolpathed using RLP co.’s proprietary software. We used a tinted Shore 40A silicone with a small dosage of thixotropic agent to facilitate printing.