Growing up in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a beautiful city right by the coast of the Red Sea, the sculptures that populated the city always used to fascinate me.The sculptures that were brought in the 80's due to an initiative to "beautify" the city. Sculptures ranged from notable figures such as Jean Arp, César Baldaccini, Julio Lafuente and Joan Miró. At the time of making this (2024), I havent seen a chess set that was dedicated to the city of Jeddah, let alone Saudi Arabia - As an Industrial Designer, I saw a gap I can fill, so I tinkered around.
MoodBoard: In order to design a chess set specific to Jeddah, I had to understand what I can design around. Growing up, I always saw these sculptures around the city and I decided it should be the focus of the project.
Base: Once I had the concept down, I had to devise a way to design the base of the chess board. Since I was 3D printing this, I had to make it possible to assemble these pieces one by one and account for tolerance.
Physical Testing: After designing it, I had to move on to physically test if the connections fit, and it did! It fit firmly and snug and I was able to print out the rest of it,
Creating the Pattern: The pattern for the board I chose to design was a wavy pattern. This choice was due to the fact that Jeddah is a city right by the Red Sea, the wavy patterns are an homage to the waves of the Red Sea.
Sculptures from 2D to 3D: By having reference images, it was easy to recreate the models within a 3d modeling software, the additional step was adding bases to it as its geometry would be unsuitable for it to stand up alone - This played well with the context that they’re sculptures.
Final Render: An amazing project visually, I was happy that I was able to complete it - Now it was time to physically see it take form.
Final Steps: After successfully printing out the base, it was time to print out what would make it all complete; The pattern of the board and the pieces that would inhabit it.
Final Model: With all the pieces assembled the chess board finally came alive! Able to interact with it and a great centerpiece for a table and chess enthusiasts. Overall, the only challenges faced with the project was assembling the pattern, next step would be to optimize it and make it user friendly to assemble by adding numbers to the pieces.
I finished it off by adding a laser engraved metal plate that commemorates when it was made and a part of a collection I continuously work on in my time in New York.