Dezeen and MINI Frontiers: Dutch designer Lilian van Daal claims 3D-printing can replace traditional upholstery techniques to produce spongy-surfaced furniture in this movie filmed in Eindhoven.

Van Daal is investigating alternative production methods for upholstered furniture, which is usually very resource-intensive to make.

"Soft seating usually consists of several different materials [and] it's all glued together, which is a problem for the recyclability of a product," she explains in the movie.

"You need five or six different factories [to produce conventional upholstered furniture]. But with 3D printing you can produce very locally and you don't have material waste in the production process; you only use the material you need."

At Dutch Design Week, where the movie was filmed, Van Daal presented prototypes of a 3D-printed chair called Biomimicry, which, despite being printed entirely from plastic, features a flexible seat and a rigid base.

Van Daal was able to create these varying zones of stiffness by imitating plant cell structures in the natural world.

"In nature a material grows in different structures and this is how functions are created," she explains. "3D printing is also a way to 'grow' material, so I've used this solution to create a new way of soft seating with several different functions in one material."

She continues: "The chair is made from nylon, a normal 3D-printing material. When you adjust the structure a little bit, it's easy to create different zones of flexibility."

Van Daal admits there is lot of work to do before her chair is ready for market and she is currently researching how to take the project forward.

"I have to develop it further," she says. "I also want to do more research on using biological materials [instead of plastic]."

Dezeen and MINI Frontiers is an ongoing collaboration with MINI exploring how design and technology are coming together to shape the future.

The music in the movie is a track called Family Music by Eindhoven-based hip hop producer Y'Skid.