ximi li intricately folds slender aluminum tubes for MONOCHROME basic furniture series

ximi li folds, bends, and melds slender tubes of aluminum

Looking to the future of furniture design, MONOCHROME goes back to basics and explores the beauty of raw materiality and the unpredictability of authentic craftsmanship. The brand’s first collection ‘Basic’, conceived by Ximi Li, adopts a fundamental approach to test the potential of modern applications of industrial design for an avante-garde outcome.

Using aluminum as a core material, Li takes slender tubes and folds, bends, and melds them into intricate compositions that reveal functional chairs and tables. Despite the robustness of the material and the unpredictable outcomes marked with welding scars, the objects boast a delicate and somewhat organic sense of fluidity juxtaposed with industrial expressions.

delicate folds of aluminum | all images courtesy of URBANCRAFT

modern applications of raw industrial design 

Designed for MONOCHROME, an independent branch of furniture design brand URBANCRAFT, ‘Basic’ explores the uncertainty of materiality and industrial craftwork and embraces its outcomes. Founder Ximi Li challenges established design and structural logics with the help of aluminum — the collection’s primary and sole building material. Robust and ductile, it takes on a different form each time it is extruded or manipulated.

‘We want to preserve its state between manual and industrial production while maintaining consistency in design process and expression. Meanwhile, we retain the natural form of welding scars, which has become a unique label throughout the series,’ notes the team at URBANCRAFT.

As a result, the tubular furniture pieces embrace a minimalist, modern and raw aesthetic marked with unexpected outcomes and nuanced welding scars expressive of the process. Ximi Li’s open-ended experimentations with aluminum reveal minimalist, monochromatic forms that are folded, woven and welded together to create sculptural bar and dining tables, and stools and chairs.