Coachella's 3D-Printed Benches Were Made in Two States at Once

Thirty custom benches sat at the center of SKYLRK OASIS at Coachella 2026. They were designed for the installation by Justin Bieber's brand, printed in recycled PETG GF, and arranged in circular clusters around palm trees near the festival's eastern entrance.

What made the project unusual was where the printing happened. Decibel Made handled half the benches from its facility in New Jersey. Caracol printed the other half in Texas. The same design file traveled to both locations, and both sites produced identical parts on the same deadline.

Each bench is nearly seven feet long. Grouped together, they form a continuous low landscape rather than isolated seating. The structures are hollow and lightweight but engineered for heavy foot traffic and outdoor exposure. Material choice was deliberate: the PETG GF comes from industrial waste streams, is UV-stable and weather-resistant, and can be shredded and reprinted when the festival ends.

Caracol CEO Francesco De Stefano described the project as proof that robotic large-format additive manufacturing can scale by adding cells that run the same validated file, not by building bigger centralized factories. Decibel's role showed that a design studio can own part of the production chain without investing in its own print farm.

The two-site model is not just a festival trick. Caracol opened a 6,000 square foot U.S. headquarters in Austin in September 2025 and launched a Milan LFAM hub in July 2026. The company is trying to prove that distributed robotic manufacturing can replace traditional tooling for custom, large-format parts.

The open question is consistency. A design signed off in New Jersey and printed in Texas is only useful if both sites produce the same part. Decibel and Caracol met the Coachella deadline with 30 benches. The industry is still working out how to guarantee that result at higher volumes.