Sculpting with Silence: Sand, Sound, and Surface with Wedge Design Studio

Key Points

1. Forms are generated with Grasshopper/Houdini where material data are encoded into the script, letting the team iterate hundreds of options fast and steer outputs toward target behaviours.
2. Recyclable sand binder-jetting. 0.08–0.3 mm grains (often quartz ~0.2 mm) give high resolution and a raw, tactile finish. After shredding and binder removal, unbound sand returns to the loop for reprint.
3. Fit-for-purpose material palette. Quartz balances rigidity, resolution and longevity; ceramic sand offers smoother finish and strong strength-to-weight; zircon is robust but heavy, raising self-load risks on larger parts.
4. Performance baked into form. Compliance, weathering and end-of-life are considered at concept stage; examples include acoustically “dead” enclosures (dense, high damping bodies) and façades that leverage patina/water marks as intentional outcomes.
5. Scalability via co-development. Rapid supplier prototyping across binder-jet, metal SLS, polyjet and robotic forming reduces risk and expands feasible specs; a searchable database filtering by recyclability, performance and region would accelerate early-stage sourcing.

Full interview with Wedge Design Studio

1. Your use of recyclable sand in sculptural furniture is striking. What properties of this material made it suitable for the scale and tactility your pieces demand?

First of all, it has high finesse; it is very accurate, with a layer thickness of 0.08 mm to 0.3 mm, depending on the type of sand. Most of the time, we use quartz sand, which is around 0.2 mm.

Second, it is tactile in the sense that the finished piece retains the raw materiality and texture of the sand - this doesn’t get lost during the translation from digital to physical.

Third, the process itself is very accessible. You can print quickly and at relatively low cost, which is ideal for iterative design when you’re testing hundreds of options and structures in a short amount of time.

2. In projects like Epoch II, how do you technically approach the merging of synthetic and organic forms, especially when working with unconventional material pairings?

We use a lot of computational tools that are common in architecture and digital art, such as Grasshopper and Houdini. These tools allow us to encode material data directly into the algorithms as we create the forms in 3D.

So it’s both an artistic and deterministic approach, if you can describe algorithm-driven design that way. We write the algorithms and then tailor their outputs to align with our design goals. This requires technical understanding of the software, but also the ability to go beyond what the software normally allows in order to achieve something more artistic and not limited by the tool.

3. Recurrence engages with material memory. How does the materiality of façades inform this exploration, and what fabrication techniques allow you to embed narrative into surface?

For us, the “memory” comes from documentation. Humans rely on visual, audio, and semantic inputs, but in a technologically driven age we also use the scanner as an agent of observation.

The site is captured as millions of points in a messy point cloud. Our job is to find edges and thresholds in that field of points and decide where an intervention should happen - something architects do naturally.

Binder-jet sand printing works especially well here because each grain of sand can be seen as a direct materialisation of a point in Cartesian space. This translation is made possible through the fabrication technique itself.

4. When sourcing materials like recyclable sand, what criteria guide your selection process? Are you prioritising regionality, reusability, structural integrity, or something else?

There are very strict criteria for determining whether the sand is recyclable. By “recyclable,” we mean that once printed parts are shredded and the binders are removed, the sand can return to its granular state and be reprinted.

This doesn’t mean all the sand is reused each time - only the unbound material can go back into circulation.

5. Your pieces often blur the line between installation and furniture. How does this affect the performance requirements of the materials you choose, particularly in terms of weight, load-bearing, and longevity?

This relates back to the type of sand and its resolution. Different sands: ceramic, quartz, zircon - produce different surface finishes and different levels of structural integrity.

Quartz is the one we use most often because it offers a good balance of rigidity, resolution, and longevity. Ceramic sand tends to have a smoother finish, with the highest strength-to-weight ratio and good crack resistance. Zircon is strong but extremely heavy, which can cause self-loading issues in larger pieces.

6. Calliope explores sound as material. Can you describe the material choices made for acoustic resonance, and how this expands your definition of form?

It was an interesting collaboration because sand creates an “acoustically dead” cabinet - meaning the enclosure doesn’t vibrate or colour the sound. Its density and internal damping make it a perfect choice for a speaker body.

The form actually developed from the Coccyx chair in Epoch I, which was adapted into the base shape. This project showed that forming with sand has both technical and practical applications, and that these can still carry aesthetic value.

7. Given the experimental nature of your practice, how do you assess supplier readiness or manufacturing scalability when working with emerging or composite materials?

There is always a lot of back-and-forth prototyping with suppliers when working with emerging materials. Besides sand binder-jetting, we’re also exploring metallic 3D printing (such as SLS), polyjet printing, and robotic incremental sheet forming.

Scalability really comes down to collaboration - and whether the manufacturers are open to exploring unconventional applications of their technology. If they’re interested in experimenting, they’re far more likely to work with us, even when the project falls outside traditional architectural output.

8. When working on public or architectural installations, how do you evaluate compliance factors like fire ratings, weather resistance, or circular end-of-life pathways in material selection?

These factors are important and are considered from the start. We begin the design and concept phase by researching local codes, authorities, and paperwork, which outline the constraints of what we can and cannot do.

During the design process, aspects such as weather resistance and end-of-life pathways become part of the design decision-making rather than something looked at only at the end. For example, in the Recurrence façade, the rainwater marks became an intentional design outcome that visitors responded positively to.

9. If there were a search tool that could filter materials and components by recyclability, performance spec, or compliance region, how might that change the way you approach early design research or sourcing?

It would definitely help us do a lot of exciting work. It would make prototyping less limited to techniques we already know and open up new territories we might not otherwise explore.

Our manifesto, “activating dimensionality,” also applies to how we work. Beyond the end results, we’re always exploring alternate dimensions of technique, process, material, and tools.

A search tool like this would help us expand that exploration even further.