Surface Artwork Commission | London
Giles Miller Studio is a London-based Architecture practice with a global customer base. They got in touch with Laser 24 when they were asked to design a decorative panel for inside a cruise ship, and needed precision-cut, high-quality materials.
The Challenge
Giles Miller create spectacular surface artwork commissions for internationally renowned clients, from Stella McCartney, Selfridges, Harrods and Hermès, to Qatar Airways, The Walt Disney Company, Hilton Worldwide, and Universal Music Group.
In hotels, cruise ships, corporation headquarters, and luxury retail spaces around the world, their visually striking surfaces, sculptures and architecture bring beautiful interior design to life by celebrating the relationship between materials and light.
To help Giles Miller create their characteristic aesthetic for their cruise ship commission, we needed to produce high quality metal panels, laser-etched with a diamond patterned design. This pattern could then be used as a guide for the Giles Miller production team for the placement of thousands of mixed material tiles, which would form the bespoke surface design.
What We Did
When Giles Miller reached out to us, they originally requested a quotation for the production of laser-etched metal parts in 2mm thick 5251 aluminium alloy. These parts would need to be formed and shaped by hand into the curved surfaces required for the cruise ship decorative panels.
As our Sales Account Manager Jodie Smith can attest, choosing the right grade and thickness of aluminium alloy was therefore key to the success of this project:
‘The panels needed to be thin enough for Giles Miller to fold and manipulate by hand, so we advised choosing 1050 aluminium alloy due to its formability qualities’
After providing Giles Miller with samples of both 5251 and 1050 aluminium alloys, we agreed that the 1050 aluminium alloy was the grade of metal with the qualities they were looking for to be able to hand fold the parts.
Our team then laser cut three samples in different thicknesses of 1050 aluminium alloy, and finally agreed upon a thickness of 1mm to achieve the best results for this project.
How We Did It
The process required us to produce three different parts for a total of 116 components. Precision was absolutely paramount to this job, as each tile needed to fit seamlessly together to ensure a premium finish.
Our Bystronic ByTrans Extended Automation machine enabled us to load the panels safely and quickly. One of our two state-of-the-art 10kW Bystronic Fiber Lasers was then put to the task of processing the panels, which it was able to do meticulously and at incredible speed. This meant the perfectly cut parts were ready for the client promptly, demonstrating our ability to deliver on quality, value and efficiency.
The Result
We think the results speak for themselves on this one, as you can see from the end-result: a beautiful surface of bronze crackle ceramic and stone effect Jesmonite, applied by hand in the Giles Miller Studio to the solid foundation of Laser 24’s precision-cut aluminium panels.
Giles Miller were certainly pleased too, with the following feedback:
“Production went well and we were very pleased with the quality.”
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