Aalto Savoy Vase

I loved printing SonjaSelena's model because I've always enjoyed the work of Alvar Aalto in particular and Scandinavian modern design in general. But if you know my other work you know I'm a devotee of art history and I was inspired to create a model that more closely reflected the design.

It first appears to be a random, simple form, but Aalto manipulates the organic form in subtle ways to achieve complexity. He's working with a process called glass-pressing, in which the glass is formed into a wooden mold. For the mold to work, there needs to be a pretty impressive draft angle and a fillet along the bottom. So my model includes those formal properties.

But it's even more complex. If you look at the image of the curves from a top view, you can see it's not just a tapered extrusion. Aalto — without a computer, mind you — offsets the curve, then performs a loft between the two curves. The result is a complex, undulating form that captures light in seemingly impossible ways.

Capturing the thickness of the glass

Look at the top view of the actual vase, and you can see that the molding process creates a non-uniform glass thickness — the more the glass has to stretch, the thinner it gets. I thought long and hard about this, and even made a model that emulated this. BUT I chose instead to create a form that, like SonjaSelena's work, reflects the process of 3D printing. I thought if Aalto were alive and using a 3D printer, he would do the same (just as his vase did with glass).

So, how to print it? You can see the model is a solid form with no cavity. Simply print as follows to create an open top:

• Perimeters: 6 to 8
• Horizontal shell solid layers: top 0, bottom 8 to 10 (it should be thicker than the sides)
• Seam: your choice… the seam is tough on this one. I chose random and included a scarf
• Infill: 0%
• Top and bottom fill pattern: Concentric
• NO supports

Why support-free works

Fillets at the base are a common feature of glass, but they print kind of poorly. And supports don't yield a result that's any better than without. So I have a trick to help with this.

Look at the image of the fillet detail, and you'll notice I've applied a chamfer of about 50 degrees FIRST, then applied the fillet to the top edge of the chamfer. I've found this creates a much better print that is visually indistinguishable from a full fillet, but requires no support.

Final notes

The vase has been created by Iittala since 1955 and remains very popular. The images of the vase are from this website. As a remix, my license reflects the original model, but I'll caution anyone who wants to print this for commercial purposes that Iittala may take a dim view.

UPDATE: I've added some images of my full-size “clear” blue PETG print, 55 hours on an MK3+ with a layer height of 0.1 and printed 67% speed to get as much translucency as possible.