General history and idea

The original design is made by Fivos Doganis (Dassault Systèmes employee) using 3DVIA Shape 3.0, in 2008. Thanks to his ingenious design of this Children Eco Crate Desk, Fivos won the 3DVIA Challenge #12! The goal of this challenge was to try to help the environment by creating ecological friendly solutions to one of our most frequent used conveniences: crates. The participants were all users of the 3DVIA community.

Since, Fivos Doganis dreams of making his design real to help the world development and the environment. Fivos Doganis agreed for providing his design to the Leapfrog Project, a Dassault Systèmes’ CSR project to promote eco-design in emerging countries launch in 2012 in Vietnam.

His design was used in the Leapfrog Project as the first pilot product idea. A workshop on eco-design and SolidWorks Sustainability has been organized in Hanoi (Vietnam) in September 2012. The attendees were mainly designers that were encouraged to improve the design of the Eco-crate Desk using eco-design methodologies and SolidWorks Sustainability.

A first 3D-printed model was made with Sculpteo for this Leapfrog Project workshop:

The participant had to start working with these conceptual design key points:

General design

At first glance, it is a crate. But once separated into 3 parts, it can be remounted as a chair and a desktop.

As you can see, cylinders acting as screws are used to assemble and manufacture the crate. The whole is assembled with as few moving parts as possible while trying to keep at the same time a fully functional crate and desk.

This model represents the way the crate can be opened and filled in.

Key points of conceptual design

General design

      The design was made by following the 3Rs rules of eco-design:

• Reduce:
  • Reducing the amount of waste: no moving parts.
  • Reducing waste space because the crates can be stacked easily since they are perfectly square.
• Reuse:
  • The entire crate is turn into a comfortable chair and a useful desk.
  • When the chair and desk are too small to be used by the kids, they can be reused as a stowage crate.
• Recycle:
  • The materials are kept simple and cost-effective, but should remain sturdy: the material used could be recycled.
  • When the product is worn out, all parts can be recycled.

      The shape remains simple so manufacturing costs can be low. More, as a square, the desk is easy to transport and stacked.

      The concept has been imagined for schools in developing countries. The crate would be send and the left-over space inside could include writing tools, books, and other educational materials.

      In term of packaging, this model is a perfect example of eco-packaging because it’s merging the packaging with the packaged.

Modulable

      It can have several configurations: crate, opened parts, desk

      It’s one object for two functions: crate as the possibility for stocking material & a desk office/school working furniture

      There are only few moving parts which make the desk easy to manufacture, assemble, transport, use and recycle

Material

      The material must be resistant for children activity and crate storage

      In terms of eco-design, the desk should be done with sustainable material: recycled, recyclable, small environmental footprint. In this purpose, SolidWorks Sustainability will be very useful.

The base of the chair

      The material of the chair base could be removable

      This extra part could be used as a rack under the table, or a hands-support. It can also be put on the table as a computer cooler.

The General ergonomic

      The size has to study to fit a children size.

      The seat could also be mounted at an angle to create a back angle.

      The shape of the all chair must avoid children from having backaches or uncomforted.

Conclusion

To share this design with all Dassault Systèmes employees we decided to re-create a 3D-printed version of the Eco-Crate Desk that will be exposed in the FabLab soon.

We hope that this story and this innovative design will inspire more sustainable design approaches and practices. Indeed, even if today 3D printers require decidedly environmentally-unfriendly materials, there are many opportunities to use the technology in more sustainable ways. On this subject, I advise you to check this article: https://www.dsswym.3ds.com/#post:76266

 Here are the SolidWorks files: