When designer Tom Dixon partnered with IKEA on a sofa bed a few years back, the partnership resulted in not only the widely buzzed-about Delaktig collection, but also a seed for the future. As part of the collaboration, Dixon was introduced to Hydro, one of the world’s largest aluminum producers, which was, as Dixon puts it, “keen to show innovation in material and technology.” The partnership earned the company a spot in the designer’s professional Rolodex. This summer, the result of the duo’s second collaboration (this time for his eponymous firm), the Hydro chair, was unveiled among an industry-wide crop of aluminum furniture debuts.
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In an era when manufacturers and consumers alike are hyperaware of the circular economy, the metal offers perks aplenty: Aluminum is lightweight, durable, noncorrosive, applicable in indoor and outdoor settings, and infinitely recyclable. (According to the Aluminum Association, nearly 75% of all aluminum produced is still in use today.) Though the material has long been a go-to for outdoor environments, this new wave of aluminum designs is thinking indoors first.
Designers have their own reasons for seeking out the material. For Andre Herrero, of AD100 firm Charlap Hyman & Herrero, aluminum’s ability to take on various finishes was what piqued an initial attraction. (The designer opted for a mirror-slick sheen in the firm’s latest table series for L.A. gallery The Gilded Owl. And though the material may not be entirely new for the New York–based studio Green River Project (it makes up the entirety of its Collection IV line from 2018), aluminum remains a consistent material muse for founders Ben Bloomstein and Aaron Aujla.
“I think we are attracted to the weight and tone of the material,” Aujla tells AD PRO. Easy access helps, too. The duo collaborates with Bloomstein’s brother, an airline mechanic turned metalworker, who brings Green River Project’s designs to life at his upstate New York–based foundry Bloomstein Industrial. And Tom Dixon finds intrigue in the fact that “it’s a modern material with many new possibilities being revealed all the time.”
Perhaps the latter is a cause for the recent proliferation of aluminum furnishings, namely those that highlight the metal’s raw, slightly glossy finish as opposed to hiding it under a powder-coated layer. Herrero adds to the notion of innovation by noting its growing accessibility. “We were happy to learn that smaller fabrication studios can now use the material since milling machines are smaller and more affordable,” he says. Then again, Hererro adds, “It could also be a reactionary response to the overuse of brass in millennial design over the last few years.”
So swings design’s pendulum. The latest in aluminum isn’t reserved for cold, industrial interiors, but rather those with complexity: On the market are pieces that oxidize beautifully, developing natural characteristics over time, lending them the ability to play nicely with various aesthetics. Browse the latest market debuts highlighting the metal—and the innovative methods now shaping it—below.
The Hydro chair by Tom Dixon.
