01
01 Background
SolidWorks Corporation is a company belonging to Dassault Systemes which produces 3D-modeling software for engineers, called computer-aided design (CAD) software. Having taught myself the software in high school, I had everything I needed to become their first high school intern ever.
I worked with a group of engineers on a marketing project called Let's Go Design. We were given a sizeable budget by the company to design and prototype the most exciting concepts we could think of and to record a web video series around it to advertise SolidWorks to budding engineers. I worked with Jeremy Luchini, the lead and face of Let's Go Design, among many others, to design and build what we called The Ultimate Office — our vision of the next-generation office cubicle.
02
02 Design
We began by tossing out the conventional four-walls design of cubicles and designed a hexagonal skeletonal structure with a chair that hung from a motorized gantry above. I modeled the PCs, monitors, and drawing board for the model so we could model and plan out how everything would fit.
We modeled the entire design in SolidWorks first.
We modeled the entire design in SolidWorks first.
03
03 Development
Once we finalized the CAD model, we began construction of the actual Ultimate Office. I helped build the indoor waterfall from scratch, since we couldn't find anything online of the right size, shape, and color that we needed. We laid the inside with silicone to waterproof the structure and spray-painted it black.
Constructing the indoor waterfall by hand.
Constructing the indoor waterfall by hand.
Finally, as we completed parts of the Ultimate Office, everything started coming together. The film crew made a spectacular revealing of the final design and we really enjoyed ourselves. Our Ultimate Office was showcased later that year at SolidWorks World to thousands of people. I returned the following summer and helped out when I could with building The Ultimate Baby Stroller as well because I loved the work and the team so much.
Jeremy sitting in the floating chair in the finished prototype.
Jeremy sitting in the floating chair in the finished prototype.