With design software advancing at an extraordinary pace, what once demanded months of careful drawing, coordination, and calculation, can now be achieved in a matter of hours. Tools such as Grasshopper 3D and Autodesk Dynamo have changed design methodology to unlock new forms, new efficiencies, and new levels of creative freedom.
The results are often astonishing.
This evolution has made the design process richer and more exploratory, yet it has also introduced a growing challenge:
How do you actually build these ideas?
For manufacturers like us, the gap between digital possibility and physical reality has never been more perceptible. Complex geometry, non-repeating components, and highly bespoke forms demand a completely different approach to production.
Keeping pace with this ramping up of design intricacy requires more than incremental change, it demands investment. And so over the past few years, we’ve focused on developing the capabilities needed to turn ambitious digital models into physical output.
It began with the introduction of 5-axis milling. This allows us to machine complex moulds from solid blocks, moulds which provide the foundation for producing freeform panels through fibre and resin layup.
The Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion (2019) was one of our earliest large-scale applications of this approach. We manufactured 450 unique fibreglass panels, each panel different, each critical to the overall form of the structure.
And since then, our capabilities have continued to evolve.
The addition of additive manufacturing has expanded what’s possible, through both Fused Deposition Modelling and Powder Bed Fusion. Whether for prototyping, tooling, or end-use applications, we can now produce highly complex components quickly and efficiently. This has given us a significant advantage, not just in terms of geometry, but in speed and flexibility of output.
And yet, some of the most compelling outcomes don’t come from the most advanced machines.
Time and again, we see beautifully resolved forms emerge from relatively simple processes, for example flatbed laser cutting, followed by careful folding, welding, and finishing. Whether in aluminium or duplex stainless steel, these projects are a reminder that innovation isn’t defined solely by technology, but by how it is applied.
- 1/2 BBC Studios MIPCOM Pavilion, 2019
- 2/2 Platonic solid prototypes for the UAE Founder's Memorial, 2019
Because ultimately, delivering complex design is not just a question of software or machinery.
It’s about workflow integration. Understanding how components come together, how materials behave, and how ideas translate from screen to workshop to site. It relies on skilled people, the craftsmen, engineers, and installers who can interpret complexity and execute it with precision.
Design innovation isn’t slowing down.
If anything, the gap between what can be imagined and what can be built will continue to widen.
Our role is to close that gap. And so that’s what we’ll continue to do, no matter how complex the challenge.
