With a focus on the design of systems and the creation of tools and processes for producing products, Swedish-Chilean designer Anton Alvarez has had his work exhibited internationally at establishments including the Design Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Similar to other designers who have created their own methods of manufacturing, the unique aesthetic that comes from some of Alvarez’s latest designs is driven by the process of creating the object rather than a specific end goal. More recently, this came in the form of his Thread Wrapping Machine.

The machine, which was built by Alvarez, is a tool used to help join different types of material with a color and glue-coated thread. Rather than using screws or nails, all of the objects are bound together with layers of thread fed through his 360-degree wrapping machine.

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“I wanted to create an externalised joint that would enable me to combine a big range of different materials that normally would require very time-consuming methods of joining them together, and at the same time, to create a decorative pattern formed by the different colours of the thread,” says Alvarez.

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“The Craft of Thread Wrapping was born with this tool that I designed and manufactured. It is a new way of making that has originated from years of my own personal research, beginning with my background in cabinetmaking and leading into my years of conceptual and process-based design research.”

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A recent graduate of the prestigious Royal College of Art’s Design Products MA , Alvarez previously focused his studies on fine art and cabinetmaking through a series of workshops and classes.

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Earlier this month, he was the featured designer in a Vans #LIVINGOFFTHEWALL documentary where he further describes his creative process and working with his self-built fabrication machine:

Check out the rest of Alvarez’s impressive blend of fine art and product design over AntonAlvarez.com.

Author

Simon is a Brooklyn-based industrial designer and Managing Editor of EVD Media. When he finds the time to design, his focus is on helping startups develop branding and design solutions to realize their product design vision. In addition to his work at Nike and various other clients, he is the main reason anything gets done at EvD Media. He once wrestled an Alaskan alligator buzzard to the ground with his bare hands… to rescue Josh.