“Laminates are more than just paper and finish.”
The idea from the beginning has been to celebrate laminate, simply as it is. Its strengths; its limitations; its aspirations.
For Singaplural 2019, EDL collaborated with Formwerkz Architects to push the boundaries of our materials. Of particular interest for the team is the diametrically opposed qualities found in stone laminates: the heavy, blocky nature of stone somehow embedded within light, thin, flexible sheets of laminates. This counterintuitive combination challenged them to create something that might be perceived as neither stone nor laminate alone, but beyond both.
A high-pressure laminate is able to blend paper and finish into a surface that seems to be another material entirely. The result is a material perception— an experience— that goes far beyond its raw ingredients. Reflecting on the nature of this illusion, the team look into the way laminates emulate other materials in looks and texture, and explored how to enhance this further.
Beyond creating a visual and tactile illusion of stone as realistically as possible— which the laminate already does extremely well— the laminate’s potential lies in its own properties and capabilities that go beyond that of natural stone. Where stone is brittle, laminate can bend. Where stone is massive and weighty, laminate can be dainty and light.
The design takes on the shape and behaviour of natural stone in silhouette, while the smaller details let the object morph from a smooth, hard solid to an airy, soft veil.
The result is Bo(u)lder, made up of 437 unique stone laminate pieces carefully cut, bent and interlocked. With the introduction of kerfing and curve folding techniques, the two dimensional laminate is transformed into a three dimension volume. The outcome is proof of concept that weaves computation with craft, creating a sculpture that redefines the expectations of laminates.
About Formwerkz Architects
Formwerkz Architects was established in Singapore in 2004 by Alan Tay, Seetoh Kum Loon, Gwen Tan and Berlin Lee. The practice is largely defined and shaped by their common interest in the recovery of mutual human relationships, and the restoration of primordial relationships between man and nature. Projects become vehicles to design happenings or more precisely, the conditions that can espouse more active engagement between man and man with his environment.
