Inspired by the 200th anniversary of Gregor Johann Mendel's birth, the chair was created at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Brno University of Technology. The furniture, inspired in colour and shape by a typical Mendelian legume, the pea, was created by robotic 3D printing in about ten hours. Its author, Martin Krčma, received support from the mini-grant "Mendel 2022" for the production of the chair.

Krčma said he did not have to think long about the shape of the chair. "Coincidentally, I was just working on the exercises for students and part of them was an algorithm that generates objects from point clouds, with the characteristics of a cluster of spheres. I then used the same script to generate the design of a pea chair," explains Martin Krčma, a PhD student from the Institute of Mechanical Engineering at the BUT.

So the shape of the chair was actually designed by the computer, to which Krčma changed the input parameters until the program itself came up with a good-looking piece of furniture. "In fact, I am not the author of the design itself, but the author of the algorithm that designed the chair," Krčma clarifies.

He used 3D printing with a robotic arm to produce the piece. Fifteen kilograms of material went into printing the chair in one of the faculty's labs, which took about ten hours. "The chair is printed from PLA pellets, which is a polymer made from starch. This material has the great advantage of being safe both for production and subsequently in contact with humans," adds Krčma.

Where the chair will be located is not yet certain. The city has expressed interest in placing it in a space where this unique piece of furniture will be seen – and hopefully used – by the public.

The production of the chair is part of the Mendel.Brno project and its creation was made possible thanks to the financial support of the Statutory City of Brno.