 Hey guys, I am Amit Nambiar. So, I studied architecture and I work as a computational designer. So, by architecture, I mean like the building kind of architecture. So, I started off in a very design oriented background and then I moved into this field within the field of architecture called computational design where I essentially picked up programming skills and tried to use it in different ways for design logic and this is like an outcome of that. So, quick preview of what parametric or computational furniture is. It's like using inputs into a script to create 3D geometry, which you can fabricate using real materials. So, this is a script set up in a proprietary software called Rhino where I'm collecting inputs from the user, which is like design parameters like age, weight, height, which makes sense for the user as a design parameter. And then there's a script in between which is like hidden, it's a complicated thing, which converts that into geometry and this geometry can be exported into a CAD file which you can feed into a CNC machine and you trace cut that out of pieces of plywood and then you assemble it together. So, this is the process I was talking about like for those who are unfamiliar like the pieces that you saw moving around. It was generative, it was like created on the fly. But then you use a CNC, like you pass it through a CNC machine, trace cut it out of sheets of plywood and then you assemble it in a particular sequence to make stuff like this and that's like a perfectly functional, usable furniture piece and people can actually use it. So, that was my idea behind like starting of this project. I did this back in Mumbai a couple of years back and back then I was primarily using Rhino, which is like a closed thing. And there's a huge community behind it. A lot of people do experiment with this. It is people like me, computational designers with a design background, who come into programming or architecture and but that was, I felt like that was a closed environment. Like we were heavily dependent on the Rhino platform and for all the functionalities and ever since I've been like trying to explore how to make it more accessible, more free, more open, like for people to try it out, for people who don't really, who are not into architecture, who are not into programming or trying to do any of that. And so it's sort of to experiment with JavaScript to do that. So, let me do a quick, yeah, this is it. So, this is the app I was talking about, this is like, this is a live demo, you can check it out if you want. And it shows you the furniture piece with a sense of scale. So, anyone who wants to try this out, gets a fair sense of idea. And the app lets you extract the CAD file that you would need. So, anyone can make it themselves, but making it is also kind of like, it is easy, but you need some idea about how to go about doing it. So, it is slightly expertise. And my idea behind developing this was to make, to have an environment of computational furniture, which is like furniture which is not fixed in time, which is not designed once and then just fabricated 10,000 times. But capturing a design logic in it, so it's more dynamic. And the parameters that I always try to play with, they're like age, weight, height, so like they're human terms. Not like, how, weight or like, not a very technical thing, just to make it more friendly for people. And well, the idea that I started off with was this, that was the implementation of it being accessible on the web. And to bring it out, like to make it more accessible, this is the idea that I'm trying to build on, of making it a web app so that a community of people who are interested in such designs and people who wanna make it, can collaborate with each other over a web platform. And since it has to be fabricated, everyone needs to conform to like a set standard so that it's reproducible. So it's actually a bunch of different challenges and it's like a lot of different things to go through. I'm gonna try to go through the best that I can. So my idea behind starting off like doing with this web framework was to make it easy for designers to collaborate. So the sample that you saw was like just one piece of all possibilities. And if more people are interested in, like they can come up with designs and collaborate. And the architecture that I'm using to have an environment which allows this, encourages people to replicate each other's design, like the general open source philosophy from what I understand of it. Makers really shouldn't need to be bothered with all this, they just wanna make pieces. And it has to be like easily accessible. So going with that, this was the general, like a broad picture of the architecture. And the stuff that you see inside the dotted line, that's like the part that I'm working on. But the stuff outside, that's like external collaborators. So the piece that you saw was one example. But anyone could be building pieces like these. And those are a bunch of designs that I've experimented with. I'm gonna like move forward a few slides where I talk about what it means from a design perspective when you try to explore design this way. But let me move on with the general slide. So quick description of this. Designers, there are people like me who want to make such furniture. This is what is supposed to allow anyone to do it. Makers are people who just wanna fabricate it. And user is like someone who wants to sit. I've been trying to take it forward with the idea of like making design more accessible and trying to take it out. And the idea with, if you conform to a standard, it should be reproducible everywhere. The design adapts locally cause you can imagine like someone from say Germany is gonna be different in bodily proportions compared to say someone from Northeast India where like people tend to be smaller. And doing such stuff like might help reduce the entry barrier into this field. Cause like making furniture piece and setting up a studio is a big task. Like you need a lot of resources. You need to like trial and experiment with a lot of things. But it's unlike, once you have a design, manufacturing is like a different thing. Like you have to talk to people and set it up. You have to tie up. So the general idea of like entry barrier is very high with this. These are the parts that I'm more interested in. Like the stuff that which I told you about anthropometric analysis of data. So people are different everywhere but we've conformed to a standard of standard furniture designs cause it's easy to manufacture them. But that's not really like set in stone. And I guess like in the last 20, 30 years maybe the technology has come around where we can explore beyond this. So using this platform or like this idea to explore this way of designing furniture or actually it could be anything. And the same idea which I was talking about. Which also brings in a lot of stuff about like how you think of design. So a little while ago we were having discussions about how Git is used in a design sense. So a lot of the conversation hangs around like Git just being a design tool. But Git has a bunch of philosophies which I think like, not philosophy. Like a bunch of concepts which are useful for designers in general. Like you folk others designs. You have a check of who's worked on how much on each designs. And that sort of stuff. That's another idea that I'm experimenting with this. Cause it's based, built on all this web technologies and you encourage people to copy others design. Cause historically from what I studied in architecture school. Like I think someone said that like the best artists copy, imitate or something like that. So going by that idea. Like it's good to learn from the community. But you maintain accountability. So you learn from others, but you do credit them. And that's kind of inherent in the Git ecosystem which doesn't like, so the little experience that I had working in architecture. Conventionally in design studios that I've experienced it works like there's a design project and there'll be a huge team. Like ranging from five to 500. But in the end it's like the lead designer who gets it. But I believe that loses a trace of accountability. And if we try to approach this, well, a very specific subset of design. It's just like exploring it. So to try to do all this, I set up this rather complicated system. Well, not really complicated, but it works. And the idea is like you host designs publicly which is your own. But the app and you just report it to the central, the web app of what your design is, where your design is. And it's life-witching it every time. Which has like a bunch of other things. Like you always have the latest design, design branching and the other stuff which I spoke about. Like merging, forking and all that. So that brings the design concept and more collaborative and incentive to collaborate from the design point of view into the picture. And I guess that's about it. Like that's the main meat I wanted to talk about about like how I'm exploring design from a developer's point of view. And also this rather unconventional way of manufacturing stuff. And it totally works. Like none of the designs I've made I was so far have broken with anyone sitting on them. And I guess I'm done quick. So open for questions. Yeah, in brief, yes. And the idea is like the app, it's a completely JavaScript engine which runs on the browser. Which is making back and forth rest calls for like make a design, fabricate this. So the app is a 3JS based thing running on the browser. A designer which are like, yeah. So a designer hosts their GitHub repo with the design. And once he finishes a design he registers it with the community. Like, hey, I've completed the design because when I include it in the gallery. So at that point the idea should be like there's a curation. So making sure like any manufacturer who doesn't need to think about like how it's gonna be made. Like it's always producing ready to be made drawings, CAD files. Does that make sense? And having it accessible publicly. So the designer controls the design repo all the time. If they wanna merge people, like if they wanna let other people merge code into their original design, or if they wanna not do it, or if they wanna take it down, it's not like it's less like a wiki and more like a completely authoritative model at that point. But to bring it into gallery you just register it and you have to follow the standards. So being openly accessible, right now I'm leveraging it on GitHub because free public repos. But that's the idea. Does that answer your question? Oh, that's a good question. I've never explored GitLab, but I'm not making any GitHub API calls. I'm just fetching, yeah, publicly accessible files. So it should be workable across, but I've never done that yet. Yeah, well, I didn't go into the like technical part of this framework that I tried to build. But yeah, I'm like, I think we can talk later. So there's a starter like tutorial thing to help you through it. But if you're familiar with JavaScript, you're more than good. If you know three chairs, golden. Like I've tried to explore that. That's doable in Rhino environment. That's what I'm familiar with, but not being able to do that on the web yet. Although that's like a really cool thing I would like to explore.