cellular shelf

Cellular Shelf 01 — a shelf milled from a single piece of birch plywood, designed to test how far digital fabrication can be pushed toward organic form. Made for the Bartlett BPro Show, 2023.

The shelf is one piece of 36mm birch plywood, milled into a pattern that looks more grown than cut. The form was generated in Houdini FX, taking cues from the cellular geometries found across biology — the way cells pack, the way plant tissue branches, the way bone trabeculates. The CNC did the rest.

The question underneath was about the tools. CNC milling, procedural design, parametric software — these are usually used to make things that look like they came from a machine. Crisp edges, regular tessellations, geometric repetition. The shelf is a test of the opposite move: pushing the same tools to produce something that feels alive. Asymmetric. Irregular at every scale. Closer to a cross-section of a sea sponge than to a piece of furniture.

The result is functional — it holds books, plants, objects — but the holding isn't the point. The point is what the machine can do when you ask it to behave biologically.

credits

Designed and milled for the Bartlett BPro Show, BioID exhibit, 2023.