TEA BOX
designed to easily store and access
my roommate and i's tea bags
Object design & fabrication
Hasso Plattner Institute of Design
Laser-cut birch plywood, 0.225"
Friction fit, no adhesive
Two-week sprint
CAD & tolerance testing
Laser cutting
Material exploration
A tea box inspired by how my mother organizes spices: each variety in its own compartment, immediately visible and accessible. The dodecahedron geometry arose from the functional problem that tea bags vary in size across brands. A form where the lengths of each compartment vary with orientation accommodates all of these sizes.
The material is 0.225” birch plywood, laser cut and entirely friction fit (without any adhesives). Getting the joints right required twenty-four total tolerance tests; nine to establish the machine’s kerf without accounting for geometry, five for panel-to-base fits, and ten (plus) for panel-to-panel fits. The finished product survived drop testing up to five feet.
The botanical engraving is adapted from plants in my favorite tea, drawn during a quarter studying the Arts and Crafts movement in my “History and Ethics of Design” course. The movement’s central argument, that every day objects deserve the same care and intentionality as fine art, seemed like an apt framework for an object whose purpose is elevating a small, every day task.
