This is a digitally fabricated three-legged stool designed by brothers David and Joni Steiner as part of the Opendesk collection. Opendesk is a global platform for local making. The website can be used to download, make and buy (work space) furniture. Because that furniture is designed for digital fabrication, it can be downloaded as a digital file and made locally on demand, anywhere in the world.

The Edie stool was one of the first Open desk products and was designed by Joni and David Steiner for their niece, Edie who was 2 years old at the time. The Edie Stool is part of Opendesk’s ‘Open Making’ ethos whereby the disconnection between designers and manufacturers is challenged. The platform brings together three components, the maker who makes money from manufacture, the designer who gets global distribution and the customer who has the choice to pick from open source designs and where they want it produced. It prototyped the use of ‘Lego-style’ friction fastenings which can be slotted together and hammered in to produce tight fitting joins without necessitating the need for glue. The stool is produced with standards sheets of plywood.

Opendesk represents an alternative to current mass manufacturing models and mass produced products. Whereas traditional manufacturing takes place at a limited set of factories, Opendesk offer a decentralised system where products can be produced in any workshop with a CNC cutting machine.

This stool was acquired as part of the Shekou Project, an international partnership between the V&A and China Merchant Shekou Holdings (CMSK) to open a new cultural platform called Design Society in Shekou. It was included in the inaugural exhibition, ‘Values of Design’, in the V&A Gallery at Design Society in a section exploring the critical issue of cost and design for distribution.