The Project

Sistema Venezia is a modular wooden furnishing solution made with cubic joints and connection systems. It is designed to be arranged in different forms and ways for the creation of versatile furnishing. Website: www.sistemavenezia.com

The Partners

Maker: WUD
WUD (Unusual Wood Design) is a company founded in 2013 with the goal of promoting wood-working and handicraft production based on the partners’ design and technical skills as carpenters and architects. WUD has always favoured collaboration with artists and artisans to foster a communicative and creative approach while promoting an efficient and proactive network of professionals.  
Manufacturer: REPSTAR srl

REPSTAR is a firm offering digital services for product and industrial design. Recent experiences include two successful crowdfunding campaigns for cosmetic products and video production. They support SMEs in product design, prototyping, rendering and industrialisation.

Manufacturer: ONEDGE DESIGN

ONEDGE is a company funded in 2014, whose primary activity is prototyping and small series production for business to business relationships in the automotive/motorsport, aerospace, medical and signage sector. It offers 3D modelling services and design optimisation for industrialisation, relying on internal knowledge and experience of production processes and technologies.

 

#MeetTheChmapion

Interview with the Maker

How did you get involved in the OpenMaker project?

Following two meetings organised by Top-IX, WUD Company took into consideration the possibility to make the productive process more sustainable. The key parts of the system - the cubic wooden joints - can be made with recycled plastic, which allows to reduce production costs in the long term, increase production and make it accessible to all. The synergy of the project with local partners opened the way to different operative approaches. The SV#plastic prototype project became an operational plan in which each partner alternates in solving critical points and exploring the most effective solutions. The partnership facilitates the access to serial production equipment and allows the original artisanal idea to move away from ligneous material.

 

What are the main strengths of a maker-manufacturer partnership?

Sharing ideas is the most important goal of a partnership between artisans and designers, because when you share you choose to see the idea from another point of view, to match different skills and to make the idea sustainable … and turn it into reality!

Dream big! What would be the greatest achievement for your project?

We dream for every home to have a piece of Sistema Venezia, just like in any Italian house there is a “caffettiera”. We work to spread “Sistema Venezia” as a functional, easy and playful way to self-build furniture all around Europe … we surely need to travel more, learn better English, start to eat Kapustnica and dance Flamenco. The most important challenge is to mediate between the quality of the making and the sustainability of the manufacturing process.

 

What do you hope to get out of the OpenMaker?

We hope that OpenMaker will help Sistema Venezia to increase its potential from a productive point of view, thanks to the prototype of the cubes in recycled plastic; moreover, it will be useful to spread the dissemination of the project and perhaps get to know different ways of making.

 

As part of the maker movement, do you have any interesting fact to share?

We always tell ourselves that “art is a kind of imitation” and “no one can invent anything.” We have to watch, touch, get things and ideas from nature, from the past, from other people…. it’s a permanent school of life! Sistema Venezia (born in Venice) is inspired by an artist from Chile, that uses elegant and functional furniture (made with steel) to display her products.