April 23, 2019
The Door of Kikukawa’s New Sample Room, Studio K+
At Kikukawa, we combine cutting edge technology and craftsmanship to implement designs. In addition to this, we explore new technologies and methodologies and review our knowhow to achieve and refine our fabrication.
As an example of this, we introduce the door of Kikukawa’s new sample room that opened on April 10th, 2019.
The 2063mm high and 1608mm wide glass double swing door has a 1400mm diameter bowl-shaped sulfurized* aluminium attached to its surface. The 450mm long handles are fabricated by combining, twisting and bending 20 bronze round bars.
There are 235 pieces of decorative copper round bars embedded to the wooden frame, each 10mm in diameter, its number increasing from the top right to the bottom left.
By implementing the bowl-shape with aluminium, the doors are lighter than if it was made of bronze, and is easier to open/close. The fabrication was as follows. The bowl-shape is shaped with incremental forming, a dieless forming technology, and cut in half with the 3D laser cutting machine. The use of incremental forming reduced the fabrication lead-time in comparison to the conventional fabrication methodology. And by using 3D laser cutting machine, the two aluminium pieces fit perfectly together.
Once formed, the aluminium was sulfurized. Typically, sulfurization is only available for bronze alloys, however, Kikukawa developed a new methodology to allow this for aluminium.
As for the handles, they were twisted then bent to achieve its unique aesthetics. The difficulties with this process are in fixing the location of the twist and achieving it equally for all round bars.
As described above, Kikukawa’s metalwork develops and explores new technology and methodologies in its fabrication works.
To visit Studio K+, contact us here
For more information on Studio K+, click here
For more information on incremental forming, click here
For more information on sulfurization, click here
*Sulfurization is a finishing technique that recreates the rich brown hues of patinated bronze that would otherwise take decades to form.