Hasta La Ideas

It would be neat if future forecasters’ predictions come true and one day we all have RP machines on our desks, like regular printers, and product designers could then sell us designs. Not products, but actual designs we’d download to the RP machine, which would spit out the product in question.

A similar idea has existed for decades with woodworkers who sold plans via snail-mail. This set-up relied on the recipient to use their know-how, tool collection and trips to the lumber yard via pickup truck to knock up a trestle table, spice rack or platform bed.

As of today we’ve got design teams like Rotterdam-based Gingko Studio, who’ve addressed the popularity of their GreenWall Vertical Garden–a sort of mini-garden in a picture frame–not by selling the product, but by putting the plans up on Etsy. Now we urbanites aspiring to have green thumbs but lacking backyards can buy PDF plans, snag a ten-inch Ikea picture frame and essentially outsource the production of Gingko Studio’s design to ourselves.

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