Begin with
the material

Vahid Gheidarlou is an architect and object designer based in Tehran, working across copper, stone, ceramic and cast aluminium.

I work with four materials: copper, cast aluminium, stone and ceramic. In each one I look for what the material already does on its own, and then push it further.

Copper gives colour under heat, so I add no pigment. Stone gives shadow, so I break the surface. Aluminium only accepts certain forms through the melt, and the sand leaves its grain on every face, so I keep that skin and cut nothing back.

The work is built in the workshop, through failed casts, cracked glazes and burnt patinas. What holds it together is not a form or a style but a method: begin with the behaviour of the material, and let the object come out of it.

Method One rule per material

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One form,
three materials

One faceted geometry runs through the stone and the ceramic work. It began as a study of muqarnas, the cell-built vaulting of Iranian domes: first a folded paper model, then a net of triangles drawn straight onto the blank before any material is removed.