Time Machine is a conceptual time piece designed to encourage us to live in the moment. The design was inspired by my Wormhole lamp design in which I chose to explore the motif in the form of a timepiece.
This timepiece is meant to encourage us to live in the moment. I often feel I get swept up in the daily grind of career goals, and that I sometimes care too much about things that don’t matter in the grand scheme. The hourglass allows us to visualize the passing of time in a simple, elegant way. My contribution to this concept is the void that runs through the center of the hourglass.
I designed a product to compliment my wormhole lamp. The concept of visualizing a wormhole and its relevance to time made designing an hourglass a no-brainer. I admire Marc Newson’s hourglass design and want to credit his design as a seed of inspiration.
The grains flow around the center. Hence, the grains represent the passing of time. When you look down the center of the hourglass, you see there are no grains. This carries different meanings depending on the viewer. To me, it represents clarity. Therefore, the grains remind me that everything shall pass, good and bad. The center represents clarity, and a cosmic timescale. There were things before me and there will be things after me. It forces me to challenge my own beliefs and to find comfort in my mortality.
I quickly modeled the glass in Fusion 360. I used Houdini to simulate the grains. This turned out to be a much bigger challenge than expected due to how many particles there were. Additionally, this was my first time using Houdini for a design. I converted the particles to geometry and export them in order to render them in KeyShot. This was an incredibly heavy process that required quite a bit of troubleshooting an patience.
This is a bespoke piece to be produced in a small quantity. I contacted Precision Glass Blowing, a scientific glass manufacturer to find out if they could make a prototype of Time Machine.
They agreed to give it a try.
I ordered 1.2 million copper-plated steel ball bearings from a factory in China and had them shipped to the glass manufacturer.
Precision Glassblowing did their best to produce the form and inserted the ball bearings.
I appreciated the effort, but ultimately, the prototype turned out a bit blocky for my taste. The sheer scale and heft of the design proved to be a challenge. Perhaps one day I'll revisit this and see if anyone can produce a better sample.
CAD - Autodesk Fusion
Simulation - SideFX Houdini
Rendering - KeyShot
Post - Photoshop
