Bitcut: Open source furniture platform - منصة لإنتاج أثاث مفتوح المصدر

[m_tantawy]

Bitcut – Bitcut is a design lab for open furniture, we believe that open source systems will be the future, so we are building the future of design, based on two young Architects dreams Bitcut was their solution for the qualification and overpricing and shallow design in the Egyptian Furniture market, open source systems is providing a full chain of production begins with (Designs – virtual market – Recycled Material – Client – Producer ) through this model we looking analogy for Bitcoin but on the product design field, having the power form social innovation and common dream to have proper product with feasible price.

We dream that our designs cover all livings spaces needs, in the same time have the interlocking parts property which will the client part of the production-installation chain. sturdy construction makes it the perfect functional unit for the user, finally we aim to target the Arabian-Islamic culture therefore we are looking for an identity signature in the designs as well. maker or hacker. Whether creating a 3D print station or model making lab we are looking for simple-practical design which you can depend on.

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Bitcutهي منصة مفتوحة المصدر لإنتاج الأثاث. نؤمن أن العوالم مفتوحة المصدر هي المستقبل , على يد مهندسين معماريين مصريين كانت Bitcut هي حلهم لمشاكل لعدم الجودة و السعر المبالغ فيه والتصميات الباردة التي ملأت السوق المصري ، توفر النظم مفتوحة المصدر دورة إنتاج كاملة بداية من ( المصمم – منصة البيع الرقمية – مواد صديقة للبيئة – العميل – والمصنع ) . من خلال هذا التصور نعتبر أنفسنا امتداد لفكرة العملة الرقمية ولكن في مجال تصميم المنتجات . نستمد قوتنا من طاقة الإبداع المجتمعي و الحلم المشترك للجميع للحصول على منتج جيد بسعر مقبول .

نحلم بأن توفر تصميماتنا حلول لجميع فراغات السكن المتاحة .و في نفس الوقت تحمل خصائص التركيب التداخلي (من دون مسامير إلا للضرورة ) كي يكون العميل جزء من عملية التركيب و الإنتاج أيضاً ، الهيكل القوي يوفر فعالية لوحدة الأثاث . أخيراً وبما أننا نوجة تصميماتنا لثقافة العرب والإسلام فسنحاول أن نضع بصمة هوية خلال التصميمات . سواء كنت مصمم أو مستفيد من التصميم . سواء كنت تستخدم نقنية الطباعة ثلاثية الأبعاد أو النماذج المعملية نحن نحاول أن نخرج بتصميم بسيط و عملي يمكنك الإعتماد عليه .
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[matthias]

When looking at your last three pictures with proposed designs, I got reminded of a project for a client that I did at the start of my self-employment. Could result in a nice open source hardware business model for your initiative

Namely, there’s regaltischlerei.de, a German website where customers can order custom-made furniture in sizes they want it in. For their online furniture configurator I developed the function to show the piece of furniture in 3D in the browser. To try it: when configuring your piece of furniture on their website, you will get to a point where you see a 3D preview of the item, using the sizes, materials and colors you entered. Click & drag in that preview with the mouse pointer, and you can watch it from all angles.

Now for open source furniture like you want to build, a configurator software makes even more sense. Since the design is open source anyway, you can offer auto-generated CAD files for download to the customer, using the parameters the customer entered. Some will go and build the piece of furniture themselves, but others will order it to be custom-made by your company. The feature will make you well-known as “the company that hands out free plans for your customized furniture”, and the publicity from that will bring in enough paying customers as well.

Just sayin’. Because I know making open source sustainable is hard, but I support it fully. (If you want to know more about the browser 3D tech, let me know. Can’t share code, but expertise.)

[hazem]

I am not sure how is it to join opendesk as a maker offering customized designs, but they have a clean platform with not so many “customized” designs.

[m_tantawy]

@hazem

how is it to join opendesk as a maker offering customized designs,

Yess i did already apply to their platform before , I’m still learn form their experience to make it more convenient to the Egyptian\Arabic market .

[nadia]

Very cool.
So three things which I think are relevant to both the openvillage and your project more specifically.
@Yosser @Heba @anub and @HadeerGhareeb I think this might be relevant to you too.

Check out https://wikihouse.cc and Abdo’s project on making wood out of recycled Palm Ribs, Jozour. Also a concept which was developed but never implemented is Brickstarter..

It could be interesting to use the houses as test sites/ open canvases for prototyping these different components people are working on into a kind of DIY space stack. Here the materials would be very important. So would the hands on experience of trying to implement the project in different locations, all the way from getting planning permissions, to space planning to budgeting and pricing.

It could also be fun to make events which could be building parties or vacations in the physical spaces…

Curious to hear what you guys think…

[LauraAuguste]

Dear Bitcut,

In 2013, Dutch designer Dave Hakkens established the initiative
‘Precious Plastic’, with the goal to reduce plastic waste world wide.
Noticing that the recycling industry is chiefly in the hands of the ‘big boys’, he decided to develop easy to build machinery from affordable materials which are available all around the world, hence allowing people to recycle plastic waste by themselves and re-using it for all kinds of purposes (e.g. furniture). Please check https://preciousplastic.com/en/machines.html
The blue prints for the machines are all open source, and Precious Plastic created a series of YouTube tutorials to help those interested with the construction process.
Moreover, Precious Plastic doesn’t revolve around design alone, it has grown out to a global community that shares skills and knowledge.

I checked their community map and, as of today, there is no Precious Plastic Lab in Egypt yet.
With Cairo in mind, a mega-city struggling with massive amounts of (plastic) garbage being thrown away every day, I could imagine teaming up with informal-sector garbage collectors (Zabbaleen) to get the plastic you would need to produce the designs, and/or connecting with the already existing Zebala stores. Having your low-price materials and machines secured, you could take it to the next level by developing designs that match the needs of your (online) clients.

Hopefully this is useful to you (or to @Marwa-Adam, and @HadeerGhareeb)!

[noemi]

Wow this is very thoughtful of you @LauraAuguste, welcome to edgeryders what brings you by?

This preciousplastic project has been indeed revolutionary in terms of widespread adoption, maybe not even so much the tech, it just found its way to a larger audience somehow…
I know the makerspace in my hometown in Romania took it on fully and started to do workshops to teach others how to

Are you yourself based in Egypt or why your interest in this?

Also, remember to ping @m_tantawy if you want to make sure he sees this.

[LauraAuguste]

Dear Noemi,

Thank you for your kind message! Great that you have seen the precious plastic project being implemented in Romania. I am not based in Egypt, but I have a passion for design (amongst many others) and love practical, sustainable solutions like the one developed by Dave Hakkens. Therefore, when I was browsing through the various threads and projects here on Edgeryders, my eye fell on this project. Having learned of Dave Hakkens’ Precious Plastic recently, I simply thought that it could be an interesting starting point for Bitcut. Not only because all blue prints for the machinery are open source, but also there they could benefit from the already existing community. It is indeed interesting to see that his project a) has a global reach, and b) attracked a variety of people and organizations, from hobbyists to university students, as well as musea and research centers.

[m_tantawy]

@LauraAuguste

I checked their community map and, as of today, there is no Precious Plastic Lab in Egypt yet.
With Cairo in mind, a mega-city struggling with massive amounts of (plastic) garbage being thrown away every day, I could imagine teaming up with informal-sector garbage collectors (Zabbaleen) to get the plastic you would need to produce the designs, and/or connecting with the already existing Zebala stores. Having your low-price materials and machines secured, you could take it to the next level by developing designs that match the needs of your (online) clients.

ooooh , thank you a lot !! @LauraAuguste , this is extremely interesting for me, one of the main interest is to compile it with opensource systems with recycling , last year i discovered many places whom collecting garbage and i think that they have a lot of potentials to UP CYCLE in the market …
i will check the plastic project and see if there is available material i can embed in the furniture productions maybe with 3D printing machine this could be available

[LauraAuguste]

You’re most welcome @m_tantawy! Amongst the machines David Hakkens developed is an extrusion machine which would allow you to create your own 3D printer filaments. From your reply I could not tell whether you already have a 3D printer or not. In case you don’t, it might be worth it to check out this page, and this page.

Maybe you could contact the Perpetual Plastic Project and Plastic Whale as well for advice! Social enterprise Plastic Whale recently announced a multi-year cooperation with Dutch furniture manifacturer Vepa, to develop a circular office furniture line with the name ‘Plastic Whale Circular Furniture’. Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could demonstrate your ideas as part of Cairo’s Garbage Festival next year?

Ps. I really like the reference to Mamluk architecture in the design you attached to your first post in this thread

[hazem]

@OnsESSID check this out

[mahmoud]

Nice IDEA!

i can help in branding and design.

[LauraAuguste]

@m_tantawy I wondered whether you’re already familiar with the MENA Design Research Center in Beirut? It might be interesting for you, since:

“The MENA Design Research Center is highly involved with social initiatives that concern the Arab World and contributes to a variety of social issues by developing innovative tools through design thinking and co-creation. The center is also closely linked to design education in order to encourage and guide the participation of designers in the non-commercial, public, and non-profit domains.”

[LauraAuguste]

http://mawred.org/programs-and-activities/open-call-grants-for-projects-and-initiatives-in-the-framework-of-cultural-policy/

@m_tantawy, @hazem, and @matthias would this be interesing with regard to this project?! One-year grants for - amongst others- “civil society and professional organization of artists and cultural groups”. Examples of “eligible projects include, but are not limited to, research and studies, awareness and advocacy campaigns, seminars, forums, training workshops, capacity-building activities, publications and any other activities that serve the project’s objectives.”

The deadline is the 12th of April.