An interesting piece of design is always bound to create a center point for the room it occupies. The SLO Gen communal table does exactly this for the Gensler’s Los Angeles office lobby. It is a collaboration between Gensler and the Department of Architecture at the College of Architecture and Environmental Design at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo (California). Due to its thermoforming properties, Hi MACS was the material chosen to create a smooth, fluid, seamless surface, which was what the architects and engineers aimed towards from the first meeting. 
In 2011, professors Jim Doerfler and Mark Cabrinha, co-directors of Cal Poly’s Digital Fabrication Lab, began a collaboration with Gensler L.A. design director Shawn Gehle in order to create a fully-virtualized studio. They started a 10 week seminar, focusing on form-finding and digital fabrication tools, with the final result of creating a furniture piece. The result is a semi waffle structure, semi smooth surface, that beautifully combines digital and physical fabrication techniques – a collective effort with an unitary result. 
By:Lidia Ratoi
