The Art Of Recycling: Studio ilio Challenge Manufacturing Process & Our Perception of Materials.

We briefly spoke about the work of Studio ilio in this article, but we thought it was time we dedicated a full post to these clever young designers. The London-based studio was formed a couple of years go by Seongil Choi & Fabio Hendry, who partnered while studying at the Royal College of Art. The duo is passionate about seeking alternative environments in order to challenge and alter existing manufacturing processes and material uses. Choi & Hendry’s innovative products and hands-on experiments explore the boundaries between crafts and industry ranging from furniture to sculptural objects and installations.

‘Hot Wire Extensions’ is Studio ilio’s Royal College of Art graduation project, an innovative material process that uses waste nylon powder of SLS 3D printing.

‘Hot Wire Extensions’ started as an investigation in the “model of nature” with its forms and structures. The growing nature is based on the organisation of complex principles, outer and inner influences to chemical and physical processes. By adapting one of the properties of this growth – the heat – the duo’s project employs this idea as a resource to grow their own, controlled nature. Combining and merging their growth with existing forms and materials, the process not only re-interprets current ways of additive manufacturing, but displays new aesthetics and potentials in production.

The process involves a heat source, nichrome wire, and a composite of sand and nylon powder – the powder being a waste product collected from SLS 3D printing companies. The sand acts as a filler and heat conductor, distributing the heat around the wire, while the nylon powder melts and bonds to the wire during the curing process, turning the mixture into a solid shape.

Studio ilio’s latest project, ‘The Soft Side of Steel’, represents research into fabrication processes and a study of material properties. The project transforms an existing material – steel fibres – into flexible sheets, which are explored within the traditional fields of textiles and metalwork. The process was born from an unconventional engagement with materials and tools, culminating in a refined process which involves multiple parties within the manufacturing and production industry.

‘The Soft Side of Steel’ explores alternative processes of making and challenges existing manufacturers to work in an unconventional way, combining industries in order to innovate. “Through this project we explore the question – what if welders became tailors and instead of producing industrial goods, they manufactured domestic products.”

Through Studio ilio’s exploration, steel becomes soft and warm, maintaining it’s ability to be welded. By adopting traditional welding techniques, objects can be created entirely through the same material. In order to create structure, the flexible textile can also be hardened with seam welding, offering a unique quality for both the material and process. The work is driven from a blacksmith’s perspective with a tailor’s ideology. Genius.

[Images courtesy of Studio ilio. Portrait photo courtesy of Paul Plews.]