Hand-bent after 3D printing, Oberdoerfer and Krebs' Bend chair

Oberdoerfer & Krebs present a set of furniture and object experiments that deliberately interrupt and rework large‑scale 3D printing so the human hand remains part of the final form. Their Bend Chair and Bend Stool are printed with preprogrammed “bend zones” in the toolpath, then selectively reheated and hand‑bent so the printer establishes structure but the body completes the shape. Using expandable colorFabb LW‑PLA, middle layers can be foamed during printing to reduce material use and alter stiffness without changing filament type, so material state and timing become design variables. The Bend Stool began as a student project at the Royal Danish Academy and was developed for Ukurant at 3DAYSOFDESIGN in Copenhagen, demonstrating how a change in production sequence creates new formal language beyond the typical side‑profile extrusion chair.

Other projects extend the same logic: UpsideDown intentionally sends the nozzle off‑path so extruded plastic sags into loops that, once flipped, act as hooks; Human Layers translates ikat weaving into pellet‑extrusion printing by timing weighed batches of PLA pellets tinted with liquid masterbatch so color appears as a record of flow and intervention. Across these works the toolpath becomes more than geometry - it encodes future movement and human decisions - arguing for digital fabrication that preserves craft through post‑print bending, off‑path extrusion, foamed material states, and timed color choreography.