About Nanosmid
A digital workshop where craft and algorithm come together.
Photo: Workshop or workpiece detail
Portrait photo
Albert Skibinski
I'm an industrial designer with a background from TU Delft. Besides my work as a designer, I'm a hobby furniture maker working at the intersection of physical design, craftsmanship, and algorithms.
What started as frustration with standard furniture that never quite fit has grown into a practice where I design furniture that exists in two forms: as a carefully crafted physical object, and as an open parametric design.
My workshop is small, my production limited. Every piece of furniture I make is individual, not mass production. But by making the designs available as open build plans, other makers can work with them.
Why Craft + Algorithm?
Well-considered designs
As an industrial designer, I'm trained to analyze problems and design solutions that are functional, beautiful, and feasible. Every piece of furniture starts with a design question: how do you create lots of storage space without visual mass? How do you make something sturdy without becoming bulky?
Open designs for other makers
Not everyone wants to buy furniture. Some want to build it themselves, customize it, or learn from the design process. By making complete technical drawings and cut lists available, I make the design accessible to others.
AI to make variants accessible
A design is rarely perfect for everyone. Your living room is 180 cm wide, not 200. You have 22mm plywood, not 18mm. You want the lid on the left, not the right. With traditional drawings, that means: redraw everything. With parametric designs and AI, variants become trivial.
Programmable Furniture
I see my designs as "programmable furniture": not fixed in static drawings, but described as rules and proportions. The AI assistant is an interface to adjust those parameters. It's an experiment in how we can democratize furniture design.
Approach
Every project starts with a design question. For the storage bench it was: how do you make a bench that's compact enough for a small living room, but still offers lots of storage and doesn't look bulky?
I sketch, draw in CAD, make prototypes. Once the design feels right, I work it out in complete technical drawings. Then I build the first piece in my workshop. That first piece is always a test: where are the challenges? Which joints work well? What needs to change?
When the design is solid, I describe it parametrically: which dimensions can vary? Which proportions stay constant? How does a different panel thickness affect the rest of the design? I translate that logic to the AI assistant.
The end result is a design that exists as a physical piece of furniture (which I make on request) and as an open build plan with AI support for variants.
Future
Nanosmid is an ongoing experiment. The storage bench is the first project in this form, but more will follow. Every new piece of furniture I design will be available as a physical object and as an open build plan.
I'm curious what makers do with these designs, what variants emerge, and how the AI assistant develops. This is version 1.0 of a long-term vision for open, parametric furniture design.
Contact
For questions about physical furniture, build plans, custom work, or collaborations:
Workshop overview
Workpiece or sketch detail