BuckyPot

Role: Solo project, concept through design and final fabrication

Skills: Design storytelling, prototyping, TIG welding, metal fixturing, steel and wood turning, brazing

BuckyPot is a stainless steel, TIG-welded teapot with a hand-turned cherry wood handle. It is an exploration in storytelling through design, materials, and fabrication techniques inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s love of geometry and the classic platonic solids.

Plato associated each of his solids with an element. Earth is in the wood handle and the tea leaves. Air in the gas used to weld the pot and the empty cavity inside of it. Water is the tea itself and the water-jet process used in making the tea strainer. Fire is the heat both from the welding process and the hot water for tea. The fifth element, aether or spirit, references the ceremony and ritual around tea drinking throughout the world.

Initial concept sketches.

The 5 platonic solids inspired the BuckyPot's final shape.

Solidworks model.

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The largest challenge in fabricating the Buckypot was it's fixturing. By tack welding the whole structure before seam welding it, I allowed for the geometry of the piece to govern its angles. Once all the facets were tacked in, the only shape it could take was a perfect icosohedron.

The original handle was too heavy for the pot, tipping it over when empty.

The second iteration had a shorter, rounder handle, which played off the body's sharp angles and had better balance.

Handle attachments.

The handles used hanger screws to transition the cherry wood handle into the stainless steel boss.