3D prints become handmade furniture in Copenhagen
During 3daysofdesign in Copenhagen, among the emerging designers gathered at Ukurant, Oberdoerfer & Krebs presented 3D-printed living room which leaves the machine unfinished, with heat and hand bending completing each piece after printing.
The Danish studio’s Bend Chair and Bend Stool start with the familiar language of large-scale extrusion and then move away from the fixed profile that has come to define much of the field. The pieces are printed, reheated and bent by hand, with the final shape maintained between programmed geometry and manual force.
The studio, founded by the design duo Jasper Krebs and Bruno Oberdoerfer, collaborates with large-scale 3D printing as a process that can be interrupted, redirected and configured after the machine has finished its pass.
Rather than treating the print as a finished object directly from the nozzle, their works are created in moments where heat, gravity, timing and touch become part of the construction. More than a technical file, the toolpath carries instructions for future movement.
Bend Stool and Bend Chair, Oberdoerfer & Krebs, Ukurant | image © designboom
bend chair and stool stool challenge printed profile
Bend Chair and Bend Stool were developed for sizea group exhibition of emerging designers, where the twin explored how 3D-printed seating could move beyond the now-familiar side-profile extrusion chair. In many printed furniture, the profile is built on its side, creating a thick continuous silhouette that carries both the structure and the surface. Oberdoerfer & Krebs use this archetype as a starting point and then change the production line.
The chair and stool are printed with pre-programmed flex zones built into the toolpath. After printing, these zones are reheated so that selected parts soften before others, allowing the pieces to be bent into shape through manual operation. The process gives the furniture a different kind of intensity. The printer sets the structure, but the body still fills the form.
Bend Chair Manufacturing Process, Oberdoerfer & Krebs | image courtesy of the artists
The behavior of the material becomes part of the toolpath
Using expandable colorFabb LW-PLA, Oberdoerfer & Krebs can make the middle layers of the print foam, reducing material usage while changing the behavior of the object without switching materials. The same filament can be made lighter, softer or stiffer depending on temperature and printing strategy. This gives Gemini a way to design through material situations rather than material change.
The Bend Stool began as Jasper Krebs’ third-semester project at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen, where he used the semester before his thesis to test ideas that could be carried over into larger research. Combining 3D printing with reheating and bending, the project makes room for a new formal language in a field that can easily become visually repetitive. The complexity is first in the tool path and then appears in a simple motion after printing.
Bend Chair (detail), Oberdoerfer & Krebs | image courtesy of the artists
upsideDown turns a printer override into a hook
With another experimental project, Upside downthe duo takes a more playful route to the same control issue. A wall shelf is made by intentionally sending the 3D printer out of the way while printing. Midway through the process, the nozzle moves away from the wall and expels the plastic into the open air, allowing the material to hang under its own weight before the machine returns to continue manufacturing.
Once cooled, the object is turned over and the loosened loops become hooks. The work sits between controlled geometry and the kind of random form that additive manufacturing usually tries to avoid. In the hands of Oberdoerfer & Krebs, the failed line becomes the useful part. A droop becomes a place to hang something.
UpsideDown (manufacturing process), Oberdoerfer & Krebs | image courtesy of the artists
Human layers bring fabric memory to pellet printing
For the Craft and Design Biennale, Oberdoerfer & Krebs presented Human Layers as a shift towards craft making, while maintaining the same interest in process. A 3D printed vase is inspired by ikat, the textile dyeing technique in which the design is drawn through the treatment of the threads before weaving. Here, this logic is translated into pellet extrusion printing, where color appears through flow, timing and repeated human intervention.
The duo developed a method to control multiple colors in pellet-based 3D printing by calculating where each shade would appear on the surface. PLA pellets are colored with liquid masterbatch, then weighed and added at specific times during printing. Each batch moves through the nozzle, settles in the layer below and leaves a record of its passage. What reads as an ornament on the finished vase begins as a choreography of material.
Human Layers (manufacturing process), Oberdoerfer & Krebs | image courtesy of the artists
the boat moves through the engine
Human Layers challenges the distinction between the mechanized and the handmade, placing both within the same process. Designs require precision, repetition and calculation, but they also rely on the hand adding material at the right time. After many tests, the color begins to behave like a woven structure, with shifts that are carried by the printer’s pace and the manufacturer’s judgment.
Across Bend Chair, Bend Stool, UpsideDown and Human Layers, Oberdoerfer & Krebs treat large-scale 3D printing as a field of small decisions rather than a closed system. Their work expands the printed object through post-print bending, off-path extrusion, foaming, and timed color changes. The projects point to a digitally constructed version where the craft survives inside the machine, in the places where the process can still move.
