Mass Customization: Design Your Table on Your Cell Phone
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 12.22.08
TreeHugger readers don't appear to share my fascination with mass customization, the idea that you can order exactly what YOU want, made to your specifications, instead of having to take what Mr. Big Box offers. One recent extreme example was [me]&gogi cereal, which most commenters considered un-TreeHugger. They might say the same about M-Shape's custom table that you can build on your Nokia cell phone. Why would one want to do such a thing?
In the case of M-Shape, the answer appears to be "because we can." They call it a:
PARAMETRIC DESIGN PROJECT which EMPOWERS PEOPLE to affect the SHAPE of a design object.mTABLE is the first mSHAPE product. It ENABLES PEOPLE to create THEIR OWN TABLE using a mobile phone. The mTABLE is designed by SCULPTING a surface, choosing dimensions, materials and colours. These PARAMETERS are directly transmitted to the computer controlled production facility for the manufacturing of the CUSTOM DESIGNED mTABLE.
They offer downloadable software for your phone or your PC so that you can create your own table, to your specifications. Some are quite beautiful, and wonderfully presented:
If you see one you like, you can download the data and modify it to your taste.
Now before you comment "this is silly, why would I want to custom design a pile of useless holes in my desk?" One has to think of where this technology might take us- the ability to order up a 3D-print out the desk you need at the size, height, and material of your choice, without the drive to IKEA, without the cost of carrying inventory other than basic materials, and with or without holes. From your phone. M-Shape via Design Boom
More Mass Customization on TreeHugger:
Mass Customization: Mix Your Own Breakfast at [me]&gogiMass Customization: Mix Your Own Breakfast at [me]&gogi
Taking Baby Steps to Mass Customization with Platform DesignTaking Baby Steps to Mass Customization with Platform Design
Google Earth+CNC=Fluid EarthGoogle Earth+CNC=Fluid Earth
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if you get exactly what you want, you'd have less inclination to replace it later down the road wouldn't you?
Until now, my home has been devoid of any tables. Yes, I have chairs -- just no table of any description. Why? Because, up until now, I have had no method of designing and ordering a sufficiently gimmicky table, using 3D graphics on a cell phone. For several decades, I have been eating on the floor due to this insurmountable problem.
Finally! This is exactly what I need. Up until now, I've had to order my customized tables with pointless, odd-shaped holes in them, using un-novel and unfashionable methods. Not only that, but the holes would often be in the wrong place! You don't know suffering and humiliation, until that's happened to you a few dozen times.
Now I will be "empowered" and "enabled"! Just as soon as I buy a new NOKIA cell phone, I can get busy ordering lots of customized tables, except now they will have their pointless, odd-shaped holes in them exactly where *I* want them.
What I think treehuggers are having trouble with at treeehugger is just how commercial it is becoming.
the ideas related to sustainability are by their nature about using what you have, consuming responsibly... but this site has become a laundry list of things to buy.
so yeah.. some of the loyal people are getting tired and that is why you are seeing other sites who have not gone the same round become more active and attract more people.
the line on Discovery that you can lead a more sustainable life without sacrificing luxury really says it all about their attitude to the problems we face... and they are your parent company now.
actually, they offer to lend you a nokia phone while you design the table! i don't get that, but what i really don't get is why there is such a need for holes in the table? that's form so far ahead of function that it deteriorates the utility to apoint of being unusable.
anyway, the customization thing is, in fact, brilliant. yes you can gripe about the materials offered, but the concept is much more forward thinking than that. unfortunately, it is not very modular. a table is perhaps the simplest piece of furniture to design. far simpler than a chair or a lamp. you might be able to do this with sofas, modern style sofas. but not much more.
and the tables are in the end hand assembled, in switzerland no less, so no doubt the final price of these far outweighs the practicality of getting the size/style you want.
it all makes me wonder, wouldn't be better off preserving the traditional crafstman or wood-working skills if what we want is skilled customization? why replace generations of skill with a half-baked solution? i'd rather take a trip to the pennsylvania dutch country and commission my own custom table whiel i'm there eating shoo-fly pie.
What happens to the holes? The wood there just gets discarded. Sounds like a lot of waste, so that you can get pointless holes in your table. I do like the designs, but don't see how that is environmentally conscious.
I don't think sustainability precludes getting a customized table. In fact supporting the big box which in many cases is offering a lower quaiity disposable piece of furniture is anything but green. However, supporting a local designer or craftsman making a piece, possilby to your specification, maybe even out of local materials stands a better chance of becoming lifetime furniture, which is the greatest act of sustainability - making and buying things that last - the old fashioned way.
What I think treehuggers are having trouble with at treeehugger is just how commercial it is becoming.