Aram Gallery: Prototypes and Experiments

Aram Gallery has a great selection of stimulating exhibitions that bring cutting-edge design to the fore throughout the year, but the annual Prototypes and Experiments showcase, now in its ninth edition, is always a highlight. Offering a chance to discover fresh talent and intriguing new work, this year’s carefully curated show didn’t disappoint. Not only were there some clever and insightful uses of materials, a number of them also engaged in processes akin to our current theme Reuse / Relife. 

Conor Taylor’s Foresso, a terrazzo made with wood waste chips, and a material that we’re very familiar with in the studio, was displayed and explained as a chronologically-ordered set of samples that highlight its steady progression towards the highly-refined surface material we see today.

Design duo De Allegri Fogalle presented Re:connect, a seating project that they designed for Bloomberg and Arts Co’s Waste Not Want It project. Taking a typically inquisitive approach, the pair repurposed used data cables by stripping them back to reveal the versatile aluminium beneath. Experiments with traditional canning techniques, setting the woven surfaces in resin as well as using the cables to wrap and join sections of solid ash led them to create considered chairs. To add to this, reused pallets were planed down and reused in the form of marquetry, which not only adds decorative pattern to the surface but also offsets the shiny silver colouring of the cables.  

Recent Central Saint Martins graduate Jenny Banks' project Sustainable Fast Fashion is one that challenges the textile industry to reassess how garments are made in developing a manufacturing process that offers closed-loop lifecycle for textiles. Taking post-consumer textile fibres and a binder that is bio-based and water-soluble, Banks has invented a way to 3D print clothing. Built in collaboration with FabLabLondon, the printer is currently being tested with waste nylon, viscose, cotton and wool fibres.

Delaktable by Opendesk is another example of reconstituting textile waste to create not only a new material but also a new product. As the name suggests, the end product is a table, which has since been further developed and released by IKEA as Delaktig. Utilising both locally sourced materials and local manufacturing support the prototype was made from a rigid aluminium frame and a sheet material made from waste collected from Kvadrat and recycled denim.  

Whilst not reusing materials Louie Rigano & Gil Muller’s Shore Rugs deserve a mention for their inventive material development and handling of colour. The pair have exhaustively experimented with silicone sponge – a spongy and stretchy substance from which they have created woven rugs that are waterproof, non-slip and UV resistant. The enormous example on display in the show used a rainbow-like spread of colour that the pair say is made up of “virtually every test in our colour library.” 

Full list of participants: Assa Ashuach, Conor Taylor, de Allegri Fogale, fala atelier, Ineke Hans, Jenny Banks, Louie Rigano & Gil Muller, Map Project Office, Merel Karhof & Marc Trotereau, Monadnock, MOS Architects, Opendesk, Point Supreme, Rezzan Hasoglu, Sam Jacob Studio, Samuel Wilkinson, Shin Azumi, Studio Furthermore, Theo Riviere and Zuza Mengham.