The 7th Annual Aluminum Design Show
As a paradoxical material, aluminum holds properties of a versatile and adaptable nature. The exhibition brings together the works of designers and artists that explore the practicality of aluminum in the realm of home goods, furniture, and objects. By reimagining its presence beyond industrialization, the collection speaks to the material in constant transformation, merging utility and sculpture into the intimate spaces of daily life.
Naomi Dodds:
Title: Grob’s Attack
Material: Cast Aluminum, Aluminum Plate, Patina.
Dimensions: 22” x 22” x 27”
Year: 2024
Description: Grob’s Attack, a reimagined chess set that exemplifies white’s most masochistic opening move, infamously dubbed the “Spike Opening” and “Fool’s Attack”.
Bio: Naomi Dodds creates environmental experiences through sensory and interactive means. With the use of archives, objects, sound and imagery. Existing between a multitude of genres, her content addresses current socio-political matter and is often accompanied with significant contexts and materials that both broaden and limit the human condition; considering the cultural phenomenon of our material and immaterial worlds.
Bennett Alexander:
Title: Dye Scale Bench
Material: aluminum, Slub Cotton
Dimensions: 48 x 14 x 16
Year: 2025
Description: The Dye Scale Bench explores and represents the textile dying process and the dye sample books. The underlying objective of this project is to share the steps and research of the fabrication process. The Dye Scale bench features five indigo-dyed, slub cotton fabric swatches, hand sewn together and digitally embroidered with their dye code. The frame of the Dye Scale Bench is fabricated with industrial-grade aluminum that is seamlessly welded together and contrasts the upholstery.
Bio: Bennett Alexander is a Canadian American product designer and metal fabricator from New York who attends OCAD University. He is focused on the connections between industrial and home goods and how durability can be used for sustainable design.
Jakob Hamann:
Title: Hangman
Material: Aluminium
Dimensions: 20” x 15
Year: 2024
Description: Inspired by peg boards, this desk organizer uses perforations in aluminum to create a storage solution that can be shipped flat, and easily bent in place. Minimal cuts in the material reduce waste while maximizing storage capability.
Bio: Jakob Hamann is a product designer looking for elegant solutions in everyday objects.
Mary Fisher:
Title: Misc. Box Set
Material: Cast Aluminum, odds and ends
Dimensions: Container 17 ¼” x 3 ½” x 1” , Lid 18” x 4 ¼” x 1 ½” Large Stand 16 ¾” x 3” x 5 ½” Small Stands 2 ¾” x 3” x 2 ½”, Block Stand 5” x 2” x 2”
Year: 2023
Description:
Redefining ‘odds and ends’ storage in the home. A set made to hold and display the fragments of life that tend to fall to the bottom of a drawer – the paraphernalia that is kept and not thrown away. The set can be rearranged in multiple orientations, the lid can be removed and utilized as a platform or as its own container. Various stands elevate and separate odds and ends from the surface they rest upon. The set can be stacked, condensed or sprawled.
Bio: Mary Fisher is a sculptor, drawer and bookmaker who works with mediums including metals and fibers to make moveable and interactive sculptures. Their work explores themes of intimacy, memory, and loss evoking emotive and sensorial experiences. Fisher’s current work encourages reflection through embodiment, movement and play.
Henry Rudman:
Title: Diffused Wall Storage
Material: Aluminum, Frosted Acrylic, Fasteners
Dimensions: 22 x 5.5 x 4
Year: 2025
Description:
These wall-mounted storage shelves can be arranged in any orientation to suit the user’s preferences and needs. The bent aluminum exterior creates an opaque rectangular form, contrasted by a translucent drawer front. The shelves partially showcase their contents, utilizing the diffusion properties of frosted acrylic to obscure the interior objects, creating a depth and balance between hard material form factors and softly diffused visibility.
Bio: Henry is a product and furniture designer who seeks simplicity in form and material.
Sohyun Yoon:
Title: Sol LeWitt, Extended
Material: Aluminum
Dimensions: 15 ⅛ ” x 15 ⅛” x 16
Year: 2025
Description:
This work explores the maximum potential within restrained forms. Sol LeWitt, Extended reinterprets Sol LeWitt’s conceptual cube, expanding it into a functional object. The aluminum structure adapts fluidly to different spaces and uses, emphasizing open-ended possibilities. Aligned with Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fukasawa’s Super Normal, my work investigates how fundamental geometries and ideal proportions reveal their latent potential through interaction and context.
Bio
Sohyun Yoon is a fabricant in search of absence.
Maxwell Sims:
Title: Air Basket
Material: Aluminum, Felt
Dimensions: variable
Year: 2024
Description: A hanging basket has a nicely ambiguous context: a door knob, a coatrack, a closet… An aluminum rod is used in it’s full 36” length to create a hanger and hoop, in which a felt basket is suspended. The product was developed with the Toronto Center of Learning & Development and intended for fabrication with simple hand tools. Thus, the uncut rod was bent with a cheap hand bender, and the basket was designed to be easily sewn.
Bio:
Maxwell Sims is a Toronto-based product designer. He is interested in connections between material, interaction, and function.
He aims to find the intersection where expression and practicality meet. This entails an attempt to empathize with the experience of living with objects.