Swiss designer Fabio Hendry has created a collection of skeletal furniture inspired by the reinforcing steel used in construction, which was displayed at Cromwell Place as part of the London Design Festival.
Re Bar is a new collection developed by Hendry's studio Hot Wire Extensions, which creates solid bone-like structures by running an electric current through wires embedded in waste 3D-printing powder.
Fabio Hendry and Max Radford Gallery presented Re Bar at Cromwell Place
Hendry's work typically explores new opportunities for overlooked materials and architectural systems. For this project, he based the forms of the pieces on rebar cages sourced from demolition sites.
Combined with concrete, rebar forms an integral part of many buildings but is often hidden from sight. Hendry wanted to elevate this overlooked material and give it a new expression as a series of one-off furniture designs. The collection is made from copper wire grids
Created in collaboration with gallerist Max Radford, the Re Bar pieces are an evolution of Hot Wire Extensions' existing production process, developed by Hendry and his classmate Seongil Choi while studying at the Royal College of Art in London.
This involves submerging copper wires in a bed of waste nylon powder from a 3D-printing process known as selective laser sintering (SLS) before running an electric current through the metal.
Electrical heating elements inside the pipes cause the SLS powder to melt and bind to the wire substructure, ...