Design and Fabrication – A Practice of Making
At Sebastien Wierinck Workshop, design and fabrication are inseparable. The studio is not only a place of conceptual research and design development, but also a site of making, where ideas are tested and materialized. This dual position—being both designer and fabricator—shapes the identity of the practice.
The capacity to prototype, assemble, and refine directly within the studio accelerates research and ensures coherence between concept and execution. It also introduces limits: not every form or material is equally accessible. Yet these constraints are productive. They generate a distinctive style rooted in know-how, where each project emerges from the encounter between intention and technical reality.
This approach resonates with the legacy of the Arts and Crafts movement, where William Morris and his contemporaries defended the unity of design and making as a cultural and ethical statement. It also connects to today’s Fab Lab culture, where digital tools and open workshops blur the boundaries between design, prototyping, and production.
In this continuum, the studio embodies a form of digital craft: using industrial tools such as CNC milling and 3D printing with the sensibility of a workshop. The result is not mass production, nor purely artisanal work, but a hybrid space where design evolves through fabrication, and fabrication informs design.
This integration is not just a method; it is a philosophy. It ensures that each project—whether a modular furniture system, a public seating installation, or a 3D-printed lamp—carries within it the trace of its making, affirming that to fabricate is also to design.
