Another surprise item seen at London’s Design Museum was the “Endless Chair”. Why is it called “endless”? Because it’s made from recycled refrigerators, where plastic is ground up and extruded in 3D printing fashion into the correct chair shape. Another reason for the name is that the production equipment, in this case a leftover Chinese production assembly robot was itself repurposed. Designer Dirk vander Kooij took possession of the robot and converted it into a rapid prototyping machine capable of making the Endless chair.
Each chair is different and its production requires the designer to work with the robotic equipment. This allows the designer to iterate through concepts until the perfect chair is achieved. 