During Milan Design Week 2019, Italian brand Kartell has unveiled the first chair designed using artificial intelligence. Launched at the Salone del Mobile furniture fair, the chair was designed by Philippe Starck using prototype generative design software developed by Autodesk. Specifically, creative thinking and artificial intelligence have merged to develop a chair model created using an algorithm that respects the original brief – a comfortable seat that has the structural strength and solidity requirements to ensure certification and respect aesthetic standards of simplicity and clean lines.
From the collaboration between Kartell, Philippe Starck and American firm Autodesk, leading producer of 3D engineering and entertainment software that helps to imagine, design and create a better world, comes the A.I. series, the fruit of collaboration between artificial intelligence and human intelligence, termed by Starck himself “Natural Intelligence”.
“Kartell, Autodesk and I asked the artificial intelligence a question: do you know how we can rest our bodies using the least amount of material?” Starck said. “Artificial Intelligence, without culture, without memories, without influence, responded only with intelligence, its “artificial” intelligence. A.I. it is the first chair designed outside our brain, out of our habits and how we are used to thinking. And thus, a new world opens up to us. Unlimited.”
“When Philippe gave me his idea and the results of his work done in collaboration with Autodesk, I immediately accepted the challenge of starting an industrial production on a project that for the first time was not born of our direct relationship or the dialectic between me and him in these thirty years of collaboration,” says Claudio Luti, President of Kartell.
“Working with Starck and Kartell has been an inspiration. The opportunity to understand their design philosophy and approach to problem solving is incredibly valuable for our team as we think about how to fulfill Autodesk’s vision for the future of manufacturing,” says Mark Davis, senior director of design futures at Autodesk.“This is a research collaboration at the pinnacle of thindustrialal design world, resulting in one of the most creative outcome we’ve ever tried to achieve with generative design.”