Nestlers Model
Year: 2012
Media: 3D-printed plaster
Skills: 3D modelling, 3D printing
I designed this salt and pepper set as a “poetic object,” meant to be both functional and metaphorical. It is inspired by themes of the short story, “The Adventure of the Married Couple” by Italo Calvino.
The Adventure of the Married Couple
In Cavino’s story, the titular couple’s opposing work schedules mean they experience day-to-day life out of sync with each other. When one is returning home from work, the other is just waking up. When one wants attentive care to help decompress from the strains of the day she’s just finished, the other is too distracted by the coming stresses in the day he’s just begun. Despite their asynchronous lives, we still see them experience small, fleeting moments of connection, intimacy, and tenderness.
Drawing on passages from the story that describe these moments, I developed three design concepts.
Concept 1: A caress slipped in
“...As both of them stood at the same basin, half-naked, a bit numbed, shoving each other now and then, taking the soap from each other, the toothpaste, and continuing to tell each other the things they had to tell, the moment of intimacy came, and at times, maybe when they were helpfully taking turns scrubbing each other’s back, a caress slipped in, and they found themselves embracing. ”
Concept 2: That niche of warmth
“The bed was as Elide had left it on getting up, but on his side, Arturo’s, it was almost intact, as if it had just been made. He lay on his own half, properly, but later he stretched a leg over there, where his wife’s warmth had remained, then he also stretched out the other leg, and so little by little he moved entirely over to Elide’s side, into that niche of warmth that still retained the form of her body, and he dug his face into her pillow, into her perfume, and he fell asleep. ”
Concept 3: The moment of yearning
“When the table was set, when everything that had been prepared was placed within reach so they wouldn’t have to get up afterwards, then came the moment of yearning that overwhelmed them both, the thought that they had so little time to be together, and they could hardly raise the spoon to their mouth, in their longing just to sit there and hold hands.”
Intimacy in absence
I continued to develop Concept 2, thinking about how the married couple’s relationship is defined by the spaces in their home—such as their bed and kitchen table—that they share yet rarely occupy together. Both the husband and wife sleep in the same spot on the bed, drawn toward traces of warmth the other has left.
I designed the shakers and their container to work similarly, creating a preferred “nesting” spot for both shakers. In this case, the invisible force of gravity, rather than heat, is what draws a single shaker to rest. The shakers’ bottom faces and the container’s inner plane are slanted so that, when the bottom shaker is removed, the upper shaker will slowly slide down and nestle into the lower position.
A prototype
I used a plaster-based 3D printer to produce a 1:1-scale prototype of the design. The model had a smoother, more ceramic-like surface quality compared to PLA filament, which fit the product well.