The World in our Hands

The winning entry to the open competition to design and manufacture a series of medals for the inaugural London Design Biennale, 2016. The theme of the inaugural London Design Biennale was Utopia by Design, which celebrates the 500th anniversary of the publication of Sir Thomas More’s
classic, Utopia (1516).

The proposal was submitted on Jan 4th 2016 to a panel of judges including, Sir John Sorrell (President of the Biennale), Dr Christopher Turner (Director of the Biennale) and Ben Evans (Executive Director of the Biennale and Director of London Design week).

The panel awarded the winning design to me in February 2016.

The proposal for the medal was focused on expanding my research work in 3D Printed Metals working in partnership with Renishaw, UK. Previous research work had focused on 3D printed Titanium and Near Net forming techniques.

The research questions tested in the project were,

1. What affect does different alignment of parts within additive manufacturing systems have on the continuity, accuracy and quality of surface finish?

2. Can 3D Geometries be successfully printed without the need for support structures on face angles above 45 degrees?

The medal was extremely groundbreaking both for the artist and the manufacturing partner, Renishaw. It was the first time that the artist had created a fully finished multiple design using 3D printed stainless steel. It was the first time that Renishaw had been able to achieve an almost completely enclosed hollow object without the use of any support structures. This relationship was mutually developed as the artist and technician both shared files and production solutions within propriety software designed for Additive Manufacturing.

The medal material, Marine grade Stainless Steel was used for its conceptual relationship to Thomas More's debasing of precious metals in his book Utopia. This new AM powder had just been released and the research enabled complex geometries and thin wall section parts to be tested and provide case study references for Renishaw.

The research phase of 3D digital model making, prototyping and building in stainless steel using Renishaw's SLM 250 Additive manufacturing system took 6months to refine to a level that matched the artists requirements.