Ecal and alloyed’s 3D-printed titanium watch straps
On the Watches and Wonders 2024 occasion in Geneva, ECAL/College of Artwork and Design Lausanne has paired up with Alloyed, an organization specializing in steel printing, to current a collection of 3D-printed watch straps designed by the scholars of the Grasp of Superior Research in Design for Luxurious and Craftsmanship program.
The watch straps have been developed utilizing 3D modeling software program, and 5 of those ideas have been 3D-printed from a superb powder of titanium – an alloy composed of titanium, aluminum, and vanadium – that was melted at round 1,600 levels Celsius utilizing a laser beam. These watch straps could be seen in individual by guests to the Watches and Wonders 2024 occasion in Geneva between April thirteenth and fifteenth, 2024.
Nuttiya Ratchtrachenchai’s watch strap | photos courtesy of ECAL | images © Basil Denereaz
Pupil-designed watch straps at watches and wonders
The 3D printing method that ECAL and Alloyed used is known as Laser Powder Mattress Fusion, which is often used within the aerospace and medical industries. It could assist create objects with high-performance mechanical properties, thus making the 3D-printed titanium watch straps, which Watch and Wonders 2024 can see in actual life, seem versatile and futuristic with their natural and uniform options.
These 5 wristbands that had been chosen to be printed embody Emilie Seguin’s Maille and Alix Malamaire’s Alligatoridae. Maille showcases the gradual metamorphosis of the hyperlinks by having every hook within the chain individually crafted and subtly altered in response to the form and curves of the earlier hyperlink. It deviates from Alligatoridae, which intends to recreate the alligator leather-based strap utilizing a 3D modeling program whereas retaining the traits and visible parts of the reptile’s scales.
Murilo Weitz’s 3D-printed watch strap at Watches and Wonders 2024
ECAL and alloyed’s nature-inspired 3D-printed straps
The 3D-printed watch straps, reminiscent of Sacha Dufour’s Mercury, Seunghyeon Yoo’s Re-Code, and Blanche Mijonnet’s Silice, are additionally proven on the Watches and Wonders 2024 occasion via the collaboration between ECAL and Alloyed. The plant world serves as Mercury’s inspiration, with every hyperlink seemingly a climbing plant that grows and revolves round a central loop, the watch’s case.
Nature might have a rhythm, and this tempo is one thing Re-Code might need to seize, given it reinterprets how frequencies work, as illustrated by fixed waves on a printed steel band. The theme of nature persists in Silice, the place the microscopic constructions of aquatic flora, notably marine plankton with silica-based mineral skeletons, are mirrored in a collection of watch hyperlinks. These 3D-printed watch straps by ECAL and Alloyed grace Watches and Wonders 2024 in Geneva between April thirteenth and fifteenth, 2024.
John Stagaman’s 3D-printed watch strap
Sacha Dufour’s 3D-printed watch strap, Mercury
Emilie Seguin’s 3D-printed watch strap, Maille, at Watches and Wonders 2024
