Melting Pottery: Ceramics, Digital Fabrication, and Cultural Identity in Design Education

Melting Pottery is an educational design project developed by the Master in Design Studies department at VCUarts Qatar, with professors Marco Bruno and Giovanni Innella. It explores cultural identities through a collection of vases that blend traditional design, computational engineering, and digital fabrication. The vases are based on archetypal forms from various cultures—such as the Palestinian jarrah, Tunisian gargoulette, Southern European fiasco, North American milk jug, and Eritrean mesob—and are designed in two interchangeable halves, allowing students to mix and match. A parametric software, aided by programmer Andrea Graziano, standardized the middle section for multiple interlocking possibilities, while digital fabricator Bruno Demasi built a 3D printer that extrudes clay. The project emphasizes the convergence of cultural backgrounds, computational calculation, robotics, clay properties, and manual skills. It was presented at Rossana Orlandi in Milan during Design Week in June 2022, and previously at MunLab in Cambiano and Circolo del Design in Turin. Melting Pottery serves as a model for design education that fosters social interaction and liberates objects from economic and functional constraints.