In the last few years architecture has been consistently contaminated by other arts, fields and disciplines. This contamination and evolution process has also pushed architects such as Italian-born Ludovico Lombardi to research further into design, looking for more interdisciplinary solutions.
Lombardi studied at Milan's Politecnico and at the Bartlett School of Architecture before graduating with a Master in Architecture and Urbanism from the DRL Design Research Lab of the Architectural Association in London. He has trained and worked with prominent architectural firms such as Carlos Ferrater, Arata Isozaki and Zaha Hadid Architects, designing for Falper the fluid basin "Wing" (2013).
In between workshops, research projects, exhibitions, stints as guest critic and his current job as lecturer in Europe and in the States (at the Rhode Island School of Design), Lombardi designed 3D printed elements for garments, a neckpiece and a belt in collaboration with fashion designer Hannah Soukup, creating also a series of 3D printed jewellery pieces for Cate Underwood.
On request of Paris-based gallery SOME/THINGS (that also showcased his pieces during women's fashion week in February), he developed further pieces characterised by dynamic loops and continuous strips of 3D printed steel, intricate inner geometries, repeated hollow inner chambers, and fibrous elements, focusing on the freedom of movement Vs body constriction dichotomy. While it is possible to spot the laws of nature and biology behind some of his shapes, there's also some mathematics added in Lombardi's research in generative design.
What prompted you to start creating jewellery pieces: the will to transform architectural shapes into wearable pieces or the possibility to apply parametric design to a fashionable item?
Ludovico Lombardi: It all started as a personal series of works for Cate Underwood, and then it developed into a limited edition series on request of Paris gallery SOME/THINGS. The inspiration is based on the generative system which relates to complex natural systems, a constant theme of my formal and composition research. The design research is somehow not linked to a particular scale, as it is legible both at the architectural scale and at the product design scale. It is a relational and organisational aesthetic research that becomes specific to the scale, function and material at a later stage.
Which was the most challenging aspect in designing your 3D printed necklaces and rings?
Ludovico Lombardi: The dialectic process generated by the material and technological limit of rapid prototyping machines available and how those constrains inform design and at the same time how we can push the boundaries and inform the technological research behind rapid prototyping.
The forms and shapes you develop through your projects are very futuristic, what kind of programmes do you use to design them? Do you happen for example to use Rhino and the Grasshopper graphical algorithm editor in your works?
Ludovico Lombardi: I mainly use Maya for 3D sketches, and Rhino / Grasshopper / T-Spline for post-production and model editing. I have also engaged with Processing and other digital platforms, but I still think that crafted sketches and models are an essential part of the design process. Code-based and generative system are another essential part of my design research.
Do you think that new digital tools/softwares/applications such as 3D printing will become key elements of the design process in fashion?
Ludovico Lombardi: There is a beauty and poetic embedded quality in skilled crafted work that cannot be expressed in any other medium, yet the potential of rapid prototyping will definitely affect the way we design and understand design. At the same time, I do think that there is already a very manneristic side related to 3D printing which is the commercial overuse of it, and which constrains and limits the way this technology could be really used. Technological advancement is something which is constantly informing the way we understand design, and allowing new possibilities both on design and production level. Throughout history our understanding of spaces and relationships was informed by technological advancement - the perspective studies in Renaissance informed buildings and paintings, the parallel rule informed the modernist space, and the digital is now informing our time.
There have been quite a few collaborations in the last few seasons between architects and fashion designers - last year you worked with Hannah Soukup on her collection. While architects and fashion designers working together may not be a new thing, the approach (3D printing, researching into computer aided technology, etc.) is definitely innovative: in your opinion, what attracts architects to work in fashion design and fashion designers to develop an interest in the architectural field?
Ludovico Lombardi: I have always been intrigued by misusing tools and borrowing knowledge from different tangent fields, and fashion represents an interesting combination of the material and aesthetic qualities which a designer should engage with. The idea of time in architecture is very different than in other disciplines, so addressing smaller scale projects such as product design/installations allows one to engage with faster design to production processes, and 3D printing represents an amazing opportunity to engage with fast prototype in a very immediate way.
Italians have always been at the forefront of design and fashion, but in the last few years the attention switched to designers from other countries. Can new technologies help us re-setting ourselves at the forefront of these disciplines?
Ludovico Lombardi: I don’t believe the limit and constrain of the Italian scene, which is still considered as among the most relevant ones internationally, is driven by technologies. I would rather understand it as a wider problem starting from the references given in our society as our public image, or the static nature of our academic scene, or the need to have a more international and dynamic interactions with other schools and realities on a world scale.
You've also been extensively teaching: would you like to develop an experimental hybrid unit maybe suspended between architecture, interior/fashion design and technology?
Ludovico Lombardi: I am currently based in London but I am teaching both in Europe and in the US, in particular at Rhode Island School of Design. We have been talking with RISD faculties and academic directors about the chance of establishing a more interdisciplinary unit/course crossing architecture/design/fashion, and hopefully we will be able to develop the course in the next academic year, but it's yet to be confirmed at this stage.
Do you have any exhibitions around at the moment?
Ludovico Lombardi: My fashion works are currently exhibited and represented by Paris-based gallery SOME/THINGS and my work "Wing" was be exhibited at Milan's Salone del Mobile at the Falper space.
Where can we buy your pieces?
Ludovico Lombardi: Limited editions are available from Paris-based gallery SOME/THINGS.
Image credits for this post
1. White Swan, 3D printed necklace
Designed for Cate Underwood
2014
2. Wing, sink for Falper
2013
3. Black Swan, 3D printed necklace
Designed for Cate Underwood
2013
4 - 5. Splint, 3D printed steel ring
Designed for Cate Underwood
2013
6, 7 and 8. BothSides, 3D printed steel ring
Designed for Cate Underwood
2013
9. 3D fashion collection designed in collaboration with Hannah Soukup, 2013
Photographer: Michael David Adams
Make-up Artist: Viktorija Bowers
Hair stylist: Radmila Bowers
10 - 11. Lock ring, 3D printed steel ring
Designed for Cate Underwood
2014
12. Mesh ring, 3D printed steel ring
Designed for Cate Underwood
2014
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Comments