projects

Paimio Sanatorium hardware inventory, 2024

research

Comparison of two similar versions of a door handle

Among the famously thoughtful details of Alvar and Aino Aalto‘s sanatorium are the closed-loop snag-proof door handles.

These are the only fixtures in this building attributed to the Aalto studio, other hardware being off-the-shelf. I conducted a survey of hardware I believed to be from initial construction or early renovations by first walking through the building referring to floor plans, then by consulting the storeroom of spare parts.

Two versions of the door handle designed by the Aalto studio specifically for the building exist: spares from the storeroom in aluminum, closely matching drawings held by the Aalto Museum, and a slimmer variant in heavy plated metal, as found installed in the building on original doors.

Succession of other hardware including door handles, window latches, and hooks

Other curiosities include the latches for the large window in the reading room, which exist in three similar versions. Project from my residency at the Paimio Sanatorium.

hardware inventory (pdf)

Paimio Sanatorium clock numerals, 2024

research

An animation of clocks with irregular numerals in five minute intervals over the course of an hour

Original, unrestored clocks at the Paimio Sanatorium have flaking paint. Several of the deteriorating clocks were repainted by patients in the sanatorium’s workshop, giving each its own idiosyncratic set of numerals. Project from my residency at the Paimio Sanatorium.

Eleven, 2024

typeface

Geometric, monolinear font for physical applications like engraving and 3D printing. First applied to a lettering stencil, also in use online.

3D-printed lettering stencil, backlit, letters on paper beside it

Surplus lamp, 2024

hardware

A simple metal lamp switching off and on, changing height, and changing angle

An idea that emerged while cleaning up my workspace and materials stash: made of two leftover aluminum profiles, a clamp, jumbo zip ties, a vintage Philips spotlight, and a distinctive halogen bulb.

Lemon bottles, ongoing

research, digital

A collection of yellow lemon juice bottles resembling lemons to various degrees

Anywhere I travel, I check supermarkets for skeuomorphic lemon juice bottles. I’m impressed by the variety and strangeness of this typology — some bottles are appetizing balances between realism and functionality, while others appear to be shaped by someone who has never seen a lemon in their life. See below to view all bottles collected so far and filter according to various criteria:

a juicy typology

Paperclip A5 lamp, 2024

hardware

A square paper lamp with a coiled red cable, three legs and a handle, softly glowing

A lamp made of two sheets of paper with the watermark of the Belgian royal family, 222 cm of steel wire, a gouache-painted bulb, a bakelite Philips socket, and 4 m of luxurious Swiss-made electrical cable from a decommissioned Luxembourg power plant twisted into a lamp cord.

Developed from an initial collaboration with Louise Dousset, Nathan Raccah, and Ward Lauwers as we worked to replace our house’s landlord-grade lampshades. Louise found the paper, the cable and sockets come courtesy of Ward, and Nathan insisted on the necessity of a handle.

Angeli’s the light, 2024

practice

Three people sitting on green foam mats working at a low table. They are surrounded by paper lamps, books, posters, and textile pieces
photo: Cartacarbone

Living and working in a room at BASE Milano during fuorisalone 2024 with Louise Dousset, Nathan Raccah, and Perle Venzal. I worked on my Paperclip A5 lamp based on experiments we had done together, and we introduced people to our new collective, Montjoi Institut, through the book we made about our house.

Normandy guesthouse, 2023–24

architectural

Axonometric  render of a compact interior made up of wooden cabinets

Space-efficient layout for an extension to a small stone house in Normandy, defined by three storage volumes.

Floor plan drawing Section drawing Section drawing Section drawing

Money: commodity or institution, 2023

graphic, information

Slide: The three poles of the economy Slide: what is considered money Slide: Crisis of 2007–2012: financialisation of the economy Slide: The liquidity paradigm and its crisis

Design for a slideshow, to be delivered in conjunction with a lecture on changes in the function and meaning of money since the renaissance. Judicious composition and rewriting to untangle economic esoterica for a general audience.

Meridiem, 2023

hardware, installation

A mechanism made up of 12 clocks with ink droppers suspended over basins of water in a dark room

A device to show how time passing can mean two things at once. A series of twelve mechanisms, each made up of a clock which activates an ink dropper once an hour through simple mechanical means. A basin of water, catching the ink and giving it medium to bloom.

A closeup look at the back of the mechanisms focusing on the ink reservoirs; the frontmost dropper is tilted
The frontmost dropper is currently active, being pushed down by the clock hand

There are different, seemingly contradictory ways to observe and experience time passing.

One is that it is cyclical. The basic example of a society adhering to this understanding of time is ancient Egypt among other river-bound cultures, whose understanding of how to live with the seasonal flux of the Nile is associated with the civilization’s longevity.

Any cyclical system is in the image of the cosmos, and so the clock mechanism demonstrates this circular model of time. It comes by this by way of the sundial, a device necessarily adapted to respond to the movement of the sun. Circularity may be functionally vestigial for a standard analog clock but many of us have adapted our daily understanding of time such that the circular model is more intuitive than what is provided by a digital clock.

Exploded view of the Meridiem mechanism, showing how the ink dropper is connected by a bracket to a clock with a custom-made hand

Another model of time? (among many many others)

The linear, or progressive: our main current historical understanding of time. Unix time, the number constantly going up since 00:00, January 1, 1970. We do not live in such a culture of cyclical response to nature; we have largely managed to untether ourselves. Time is used as a technology in the service of efficiency. Take the arbitrary (useful?) shift of daylight saving time, or the slow, dishonest, shift-prolonging clocks in Victorian factories. Or even the timezone, which in its standardisation knocks clocks out of synchronization with the sun in the easternmost and westernmost regions.

Our structuring mechanical means of telling time is linear. Even a cyclical mechanism must necessarily respond to this by deteriorating over time. The first rotation of the new wheel is perfectly smooth while the ten thousandth has changed as the materials wear on each other with some amount of friction, minute though it may be.

Black ink swirling in water, closeup in a shallow aluminum basin

The drops of ink are the more physically complex part of Meridiem. Variables are controlled to a degree, but not enough to prevent some difference in each drop iteration.

One room where it was installed would naturally heat up through the day as people passed, slightly drying the ink on the end of the dropper, thus changing the ink pressure required for a drop to form, burst, and fall. At the same time, the viscosity of the wet ink in the dropper is changing so the drop behaves differently when it hits the water, itself also warmer than at the beginning of the day.

Not only is the water warmer, it obviously becomes increasingly saturated with ink. The inky water is replaced every morning — and without meaning to, this became a primary point of interest in the project along with other daily “rituals” of adjustment and maintenance.

A cyclical routine to enable a linear phenomenon.

I wanted to reconcile the cyclical and linear ideas of time. Meridiem is a synthesis but not the definitive answer to the outcome of these opposing forces.

further reading:

what is Meridiem making Meridiem

“Meridiem”, taken roughly from ante/post meridiem (AM/PM), used to mean a twelve-hour interval of time that a clock takes to make a full rotation, regardless of the interval’s relationship to time of day

Icons depicting elements of the Meridiem project

Time escaping, 2023

hardware

A tank on a small table with clamped-on legs and two spotlights pointing at the tank

An elevated glass tank with lighting that I used and adapted throughout the semester to do fluid experiments and tests, as I worked up to the Meridiem ink-dropping device.

Clamped together so it can be taken apart and reconfigured, small and densely packable so it can be transported. Capturing and compacting time.

A closer view of the tank of water with ink blooming as it hits the bottom A higher-angle view of the tank showing the secondary blooming of the ink on the surface of the water

further reading:

how why

Graduation displays, 2023

installation

An illuminated table with a tank of water, a screen showing ink in water, a low podium with three mechanisms
final project, 3rd iteration

I presented Meridiem and Time Escaping four times at the Design Academy — once at the midway point in the semester, then three times at the end to different examination commissions. I took a different approach to each of these both spatially and discursively.

Each installation was in a different place. Working with the same set of panels and lighting each time, I tried to plan as little as possible beforehand and set up entirely based on the space.

I assembled a set of elements: scavenged chipboard shelf panels in two sizes, moulded cardboard padding pieces, a plastic crate or two, a secondhand XL macintosh screen, Philips spotlights, and some tripods and aluminum profiles. Then I’d find or borrow whatever bricks and boxes could be useful but interchangeable.

On a low podium, an illuminated table with a tank of water, a black screen, a metal tray
final project, 2nd iteration

There was considerable strife about the boundary between the exhibition design and each of the two projects. I always conceived of the three design tasks as a whole. It would have been artificial to arbitrarily use different panel sizes for the Time Escaping table and the exhibition surfaces or to use steel for one rather than a range of aluminum throughout.

On two sides of a concrete pillar, a low podium with a mechanism, a horizontal screen, an illuminated table with a tank of water
final project, 1st iteration

Worse still would have been to use the provided exhibition furniture. I was not willing to settle for an ugly, low-quality screen when I had a good one (incidentally, cheaper) that matched the materials of the rest of the setup.

In the first presentation, I sat, kneeled, and stood behind the screen and two tables and addressed the commission so that I was looking at them rather than the display. This was received as being a performance piece. From this point on I would stand looking at the display alongside the commission, which diffused expectations of a performance but diminished the quality of conversation and interaction.

All pieces of the display densely packed, on the footprint of one shelf panel
portability

xandermaclaren.info, 2023

digital, information

I decided to move away from the increasingly bloated visual site builder I had been using for years and gave myself a few months to figure out html and css with no prior experience.

My main objectives, beyond saving money and learning something, were: minimizing dependencies; improving information density in both visual and bandwidth terms; adhering to standards; thinking about future-proofing and avoiding trends; using the characteristics of different screen sizes with more intentionality; and making use of good tools (BBEdit, mechanical keyboard).

I learned to value the aesthetics and legibility of my code as well as the rendered page. Moving away from social media platforms around the same time reinforced to me how wasteful and overprovisioned almost every online platform has become for most peoples’ needs. It is in platform operators’ interest to mystify the process of publishing work online, but it remains satisfying, cheap, and simple to do it the old-fashioned way.

Bike carrier, 2023

hardware

What’s good (relevant forms…), 2022–23

research, digital

Render of two Braun alarm clocks from the back, showing the green control dials and ridged alarm button surfaces visit project

What is the relevance of a functional object without function? The twin factors of obsolescence and replacement, and wearing down through usage or neglect, push once-valued things into the dusty shelves and soggy cardboard boxes of material purgatory. A brief window exists to get a grasp of these things as they pass from discreteness to aggregate, and our only option is to take them as they come.

Find a “design piece” you've seen only representations of and you may be surprised by how little it can do for you outside its intended time and place. This project is an argument for a quality that remains independent of something’s original purpose. Anticipation of unselfconscious usage evaporates and leaves behind a mist of directionless, unprogrammed visual and tactile interactions.

This project is an attempt to create rich and rigorously objective replicas of found objects that possess this quality. Available here are digital models, each based on a close reading of an object’s surface. It is my hope that the process heightened my sensitivity to this quality, and that the models can themselves be used as references, when the originals are not available, for what might be formally “good”.

Terra, 2021–22

typeface


download font

Nicholas Jenson’s 15th century roman typeface represents a crucial point on the spectrum between hand-lettered calligraphy and constructed type. Structurally, it is formed by the shape of the pen nib and the movement of the calligrapher’s hand, yet it is idealized to remove abnormalities that would become distracting with repetition.

In drawing letters based on this typeface, I wanted to learn why these letterforms were “correct”, on their own terms. Applying a set of geometric heuristics, the well-resolved nature of something like Helvetica is clear, but I suspected something else was going on with serif lettering that came from a tradition outside modernist uniformity.

The process for creating the letters began with drawing them at a 5 mm x-height with a 1.5 mm nib in black ink. Each letter was drawn many times to better understand its construction and to obtain better results. These pages were photographed, one instance of each character was selected, and the drawings were cleaned up and vectorized. In some cases, a final digital glyph would be composited from a few different drawings.

It became clear through the process that the logic of the roman lowercase came primarily from the hand and the tool rather than a set of geometric rules. Angles on glyphs like the lowercase e were determined by how the pen was held, and serifs felt like a natural way to terminate vertical strokes.

At all times, a balance had to be made between cleanliness and preservation of aspects of the original drawing. The end result is not necessarily resolved — too much like handwriting by the standards of a typographer like Emil Ruder — but crucially, it does preserve marks of its handmade nature.

A lowercase set of letters with limited punctuation was fine as a proof of concept and had a certain conceptual completeness, but the constraints imposed on the user of the typeface unsurprisingly became a problem. A set of numerals was the first step in addressing the functional deficiencies, but an uppercase proved necessary.

These characters were not originally included because the formal development of the roman uppercase had more twists and turns that that of the lowercase. Instead of a progression from pen stroke to cut metal, the origins of capitals in Roman engravings (themselves perhaps based on brushstrokes, according to calligrapher Edward Catich) had to be considered.

A certain short-circuiting, bypassing the rigidity of the chisel, was needed in order to come up with capitals that matched the existing lowercase alphabet formally and methodologically. Important aspects, namely the consistent pen angle, could not be maintained were the Jenson model followed as closely as before. What followed was a process in which the final form was less predetermined.

Now that I better understood certain practical reasons for the shapes of letterforms, I wanted to test the concept of anticipation in creative work — how known is the outcome at the beginning? As drawing the lowercases was a matter of emulation, I expected all along that each lowercase Terra glyph would bear some resemblance to its Jenson counterpart. Now, for each uppercase character, it was necessary to project something that was visually harmonious with the other glyphs and true to its process but still recognizable and legible.

Once again, many instances of each character were drawn, but the stylistic range tended to be broader in this case, ranging from fluid to deconstructive approaches. Out of these, I tended to select the more traditional options somewhere in the middle. In the final character set, the differences from Jenson are not as drastic as expected. The main differences other than the “handmade” feel are missing serifs on horizontal strokes as well as a more clear relationship between pen angle and stroke width variation.

The impact of anticipation on the process was strongly felt even without direct reference to a precedent. Counting on the process itself to give unforeseen results is not a dependable strategy without developing a sort of counter for oneself against the “weight of history”. While this uppercase alphabet is not formally innovative, it has a soundness and consistency — in at least this case, perhaps things are the way they are for a reason.

Printed pages in the afternoon sun showing the Terra typeface

BodyCube “Immaculate” campaign, 2022

graphic

The Immaculate Perfection of F**cking and Bleeding in the Gender Neutral Bathroom of an Upper-Middle Class High School Tickets now available Happy Pride From BodyCube with love

Poster, programme, and social media for The Immaculate Perfection of Fucking and Bleeding in the Gender Neutral Bathroom of an Upper-Middle Class High School, a play by Daniel Halpern staged by BodyCube Arts as part of the Edmonton Fringe festival.

Atelier Lachaert Dhanis identity & web, 2022

graphic, digital

visit website

lsd² creators identity & web, 2022

graphic, digital

visit website

Replacing the missing piece, 2021–22

research, information

Collage of ugly eBay photos of used, yellowing Braun MP 50 juicers
images via eBay

When I bought my secondhand Braun MP 50 juicer, an iconic work of functionalist design, I didn’t realize that it was missing the plunger. This part is critical for pushing fruit and vegetables against the blade without risking injury. I looked into a paralyzing array of options for replacing this part, evaluating the material outcomes of each and the implications for usability, aesthetics, and collectibility.

Later, I found a variant of the juicer at another secondhand store. What I realized challenged my assumptions about design as problem solving — buying this new juicer and selling the incomplete one was more profitable than any option for replacing or replicating the missing part. Regardless, I modelled and 3D printed a replica part based on eBay photos and my own measurements.

Flowchart showing decision chains concerning replacement of juicer plunger
document

Iconic fruit for the consumer, 2021

research, hardware

Shopping bag full of lemon-styled lemon juice bottles A lemon juice bottle next to a real lemon with a decorative green cap

Lemon juice is widely available in small yellow bottles styled with a lemon-like appearance. A wide range of approaches to shape and texture are evident, with different degrees of abstraction. The bottle cap is typically a verdant green. What if these bottles are superseding our idea of what an actual lemon looks like? A green plastic cap that can be stuck onto any lemon resolves this semiotic anxiety, clarifying that what we are looking at is indeed a source of lemon juice.

Realistic birds as a service, 2021

research

Tolerances, 2021

graphic, practice

A grid overlaid on a paper crane resting in a half-cube of grey cardboard

Indulging an obsession with the meaning of measurement verging into numerology: 35mm as a base unit for ideal page composition with ISO formats, and a utopia without margins.

pdf

Anchor escapement, 2021

hardware

Collaborative drawing machine, 2021

hardware

Minimum viable sharing platform, 2021

digital

A grid of colourful round 2010s-era Mac OS icons watch demonstration

Tiny room/community garden, 2021

graphic, research

Document summarizing findings from studies into two spaces in Eindhoven, one domestic and one communal — a cramped student bedroom and a garden. With Théa Brochard, Lucie Gholam, Michelle Jonker, Brenda Salirrosas López, Luna Wirtz-Ortvald, and Maija Zēģele.

pdf

Integrated relational system, 2020–21

hardware

A cardboard and balsa wood structure of shapes, objects, and containers, installed on and scaled in relation to an A4 filing box

A storage system for symbolic and physical things. Objects entered into the system are classified as missing or represented, or are actually present — with spaces left empty, replicas or representations constructed, or the object itself incorporated.

Overhead closeup with many objects visible including a rock in a box, pieces of a bike brake, and a number of cardboard shapes A number of distinct modular 3D cardboard structures acting as symbols These 3D cardboard symbols slotted together into the structure Animation showing a custom cardboard bracket fitting a stone and bicyle brake calipers with both real and replica cardboard parts

Shrinkwrap iPod, 2020

hardware

Front and back of a contoured, extra-thin iPod

Taking advantage of the iPod’s limited feature set to apply an inside-out formal approach to a digital device with analog inputs and outputs, shaping the casing based on its energy and data flows.

more

Emmasingel Kwadrant, 2020–21

architectural

A geometric mountain rising among mirrored buildings

Planning a park for a former industrial plot in the centre of Eindhoven, using the site’s existing geometry to create zones encouraging a range of uses.

more

Trapdoor fest cyber edition, 2020

graphic

City/circle, 2019–2020

graphic, information

City line map overlaid with axes

Rather than mapping Eindhoven in the way I might a more familiar city, I responded to the prompt to make a linear map by attempting to more fully translate this place to a flat, narrative representation according to a system of absurd rationality.

I started by travelling around Eindhoven’s ring road by bicycle, looking for a defined entrance to the city. The eastern point where the Ring crosses the canal serves this role.

I identified key sites in Eindhoven that would be immediately recognizable to a newcomer: institutional elements like city hall, national government facilities, and religious congregations; transportation hubs; and a few other cultural centres.

Axes overlaid on satellite map of city

The “entry point” where the canal crosses under the road was the start of radial set of lines that crossed through these key sites to the opposite side of the Ring. Lines perpendicular to these form an intersection on each site, meaning that each site is then associated with three points on the Ring plus the entry point.

The outer lines served as a rough demarcation of the city’s geometric “core”. The remainder of the lines that cross through the core divide it into smaller zones.

Satellite image cut up according to axes and rearranged into contiguous grid

The diagram of lines and zones was then distorted so that the lines run only horizontally and vertically, rather than corresponding to degrees on the rough circle of the Ring, reshaping these zones into rectangles.

Satellite slices stretched into rectangles, printed as folding leporello

The same distortion and division is applied to a satellite photo of Eindhoven. The satellite image of each distorted rectangular zone is stretched or compressed to all match in size. This series of resized images is presented in an accordion format, labelled with an approximation of the zone’s actual scale (small, medium, large) to determine the degree of distortion.

The site, 2019

research

Corner house, 2019

architectural

Factors, 2019

information

Interface, 2019

research, video

Percussion table, 2019

hardware

Shared living spaces study, 2019

research

Quanta, 2018–20

typeface

Offline, 2019

video

RGB, 2019

hardware

Biscotti boxes, 2018–19

graphic, packaging

Acid, 2018

typeface

MIDI concept, 2018

hardware

Controllers encouraging freeform button and potentiometer assignment.

Amplify: the new domestic soundscape, 2018

hardware

White metal guitar amplifier with perforated front panel

A small amplifier cabinet (30×30×45cm), solidly constructed of plywood and painted sheet metal with custom 3D-printed knobs. Meant for use at home, it has more furniture- and appliance-like characteristics than comparable portable amplifiers. All controls, inputs, and outputs are readily accessible on the front. The lower compartment, which is easily detachable via low-profile clasps on the sides, can be used to store cables and other accessories and has an integrated power strip. The front panel of the lower section hinges downward and can be used as a surface to attach effects pedals. As naturally as any box, it works well as an ad hoc stool or side table.

Colour TV, 2017

hardware

Electronic device with three buttons, two switches, plywood sides, metal top, and clouded acrylic front on rooftop in late afternoon sun Electronic device with three buttons, two switches, plywood sides, metal top, and clouded acrylic front on rooftop in late afternoon sun watch demonstration

Containers, 2017–19

graphic, packaging

Aluminum box, 2017

hardware

Contact, 2017

hardware

Chess set, 2017

hardware

Render of geometric chess pieces, scattered as though falling through space

Tea set, 2017

hardware

Modulating hand, 2017

hardware

Park of culture & rest, 2017

video

↑, 2016

video

Accretion, 2016

painting

Plastic (machine), 2015–16

installation

Interconnected electronic devices spread on floor

A sprawling apparatus that is entirely interconnected but completely nonfunctional and unlinked to external electrical or data systems. Nonsensical junctions like audio cables running into a typewriter betray the solely visual nature of these connections.

Seeds, ancient history

practice

Seeds overflowing from translucent plastic box

Gathering maple keys, peeling off the leaf fibres, drying the seeds, and collecting them in a plastic box.

about

I work mostly in print and digital design with a focus on composition and typography. Alongside this I have designed physical things and spaces. I am also a collector, interested in what we can learn from artefacts of the past, their contexts and lifecycles.

I grew up in the east end of Toronto, Canada. After my high school art program, I studied industrial design for a couple of years in New York. I worked in graphic design back in Toronto before spending a semester at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, coinciding with the school’s centenary. I started at Design Academy Eindhoven the next fall and graduated in 2023. I have since lived in Brussels, Belgium.

If there’s something you’d like me to work on, please get in touch!

  1. Design Academy Eindhoven, NL, 2019–23
  2. Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, DE, 2019
  3. Pratt Institute industrial design, US, 2016–18
  4. Etobicoke School of the Arts contemporary art, CA, 2012–16
  5. ­
  6. Atelier Lachaert Dhanis, BE, 2022–23
  7. Biography Design, CA, 2018–19
  8. Pratt Institute Creative Services, US, 2017–18
  9. Ian Maclaren Architect inc, CA, 2016–
  10. Moss & Lam, CA, 2015
  11. ­
  12. residency, Paimio Sanatorium Foundation, 2024
  13. fuorisalone residency, BASE Milano, 2024
  14. critical workshop, Design Academy Eindhoven, 2023
  15. Dutch Design Week show, Heuvel Eindhoven, 2023
  16. Joana Vasconcelos interview, DAMN magazine 82, 2022
  17. lecture on typography, Design Academy Eindhoven, 2021
  18. student exhibition, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, 2019
  19. group show, Gallery House, Brooklyn, 2017
  20. duo painting show, Project Gallery, Toronto, 2016
  21. group photography show, Artscape, Toronto, 2016
  22. lectures on art practice, OCAD, Toronto, 2015 & 2016
  23. group show, York University, Toronto, 2015