---
title: "Designer Patrick Jouin creates 3D printed chair inspired by human body"
url: https://www.voxelmatters.com/designer-patrick-jouin-3d-printed-chair/
date: 2025-06-30
modified: 2025-06-30
lang: en
author: "Tess Boissonneault"
description: "For years, French designer Patrick Jouin has leveraged the geometric freedom of additive manufacturing in his creations, bringing to life many boundary-pushing furniture pieces, including a single-piece 3D printed bench..."
categories:
  - "Consumer Products"
  - "Design"
  - "Furniture"
  - "Generative Design"
tags:
  - "future"
image: https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/tatamuchair-1-640x360.jpeg
word_count: 508
---

# Designer Patrick Jouin creates 3D printed chair inspired by human body

For years, French designer Patrick Jouin has leveraged the geometric freedom of additive manufacturing in his creations, bringing to life many boundary-pushing furniture pieces, including a single-piece 3D printed bench with internal ribs and struts, which was displayed at the Palais de Tokyo museum in Paris. This month, the designer has unveiled his latest 3D printed design, Ta.Tamu, a chair that is also made from a single piece and foldable.

The chair, which is the culmination of several years of work (following the original [Tamu](https://www.patrickjouin.com/en/projects/tamu-1446.html) chair), incorporates an organic bio-inspired structure, drawing on elements like bones and joints to create a single-piece structure that can fold onto itself and support weight. The result is a chair that can be 3D printed flat using polymer powder sintering and then unfolded using a series of 33 joints—all without the need for any connections or assembly.

[![Ta.Tamu 3D printed chair Patrick Jouin](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ta-tamu.jpg)](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ta-tamu.jpg)

Central to Jouin's creation of the 3D printed chair was [Dassault Systèmes](https://www.voxelmatters.directory/company/3ds/)' generative design platform 3DEXPERIENCE, which enabled the designer to leverage AI-powered virtual twins to create the unique structure. [According](https://www.patrickjouin.com/en/projects/tatamu-1588.html) to the designer: "The process is grounded in a continuous dialogue between the designer’s intuition and the intelligence of digital tools. Each iteration led to refinements, print tests and physical validations...Inspired by the structural logic of bone, the form is lightweight yet strong—as in the human body, where material is present only where it is needed. This is a generated form, but never an automated one—the outcome of a patient dialogue between creation and computation."

The chair itself can support up to 100 kilograms (220 pounds) and weighs just 3.9 kg (8.6 lbs)—which is 75% lighter than the chair's design would weigh at full density. Keeping the weight down was important to Jouin, whose design ethos is also based on sustainability and material efficiency. In other words, the designer set out to make a chair that used as little material as possible, while still maintaining optimal function. "We are in an era where we produce more than we need," Jouin said. "With the help of new collaborative technologies, we are now able to create more efficiently, generating less waste, right from the design process."

[![Ta.Tamu 3D printed chair Patrick Jouin](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/tatamuchair-3.jpg)](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/tatamuchair-3.jpg)

Ultimately, the Ta.Tamu chair is a proof of concept for a co-creation process that combines the skills and intent of the human designer with the power of generative design, both working together to come up with new design concepts and ways to enhance material economy. Notably, the software was not only essential for modeling the topologically optimized chair, it was also used for simulating the structure's behavior to ensure it could be unfolded and support the necessary weight before going to printing, further adding to the project's material efficiency.

"To improve the world we live in, we have to change the way we produce, design and use materials," added Anne Asensio, Vice President Design Experience, Dassault Systèmes. "Ta.Tamu represents a call to action for industry to embrace a generative economy instead of continuing to create without limits. Ta.Tamu was created with the technology used to innovate sustainably in industrial contexts."