Design studio TRAME is creating ‘generative craft’ with code.

Generative art is “the current movement of our time,” says Ismail Tazi, founder of design studio TRAME. But while the technique is at its peak, TRAME aims to marry the human touch with traditional arts, Tazi told Decrypt SCENE.

The studio's work was recently exhibited in Paris, where an apartment in the prestigious Place des Vosges was given the concept of a “generative interior”, showcasing work that brought traditional craftsmanship together with digital design.

“We wanted to put this art in an interior context to allow people to see these pieces immediately in their homes,” Tazi said.

The studio's “Visions of Future Interior Design” features works from the Craft Nouveau collections of designers including Martin Grazer, Jeff Davis, Alexis Andre and Aranda Lash in the gallery space. All four create designs using creative art tools trained to produce results aligned with their traditional craft practices, including cane weaving, stained glass, and physical weaving.

“In what I call generative craft, we start with the physical,” Tazi said. “We inform the code with the physical limitations of the craft.” That is, from the beginning, artists “express themselves physically and digitally,” he said. “They coded to be a tape recording, a sculpture, a mirror.”

“You see each pushing the boundaries of the other,” Tazi asserts, pressing the physical limitations of traditional craft onto generative art tools. The designer's inputs generate millions of unique effects, which shape the design into the finished product before being handcrafted.

“That's how you see craft art pushing the artists, generative art pushing into their practice and starting that conversation,” Tazi said. Once we trust the results, we know this will work because the algorithm is subject to the physical limitations of the craft.

The artists traveled to craft centers to realize their designs; Alexis Andre worked with cane weavers in the French village of Aubusson, who have been plying their trade for six centuries, while Jeff Davies collaborated with stained glass at Atelier Loire, which restored windows in Notre-Dame and Chartres cathedrals.

“Technology and craftsmanship is not a new conversation,” Tazi said. “We're moving on now.”

In the future, generative design will make creating collections made of unique components “effortless”. “We're getting a lot of interest from traditional designer Maison Dédition,” Tazi told Decrypt, adding that the generative craft designer houses can now produce 1,000 unique chairs at the cost of producing 1,000 identical chairs.

Although TRAME's offering is aimed at the target luxury consumer, Tazi believes Creative Arts will allow design to scale to the wider market. “As generative art progresses, you see more and more inspiration,” he says. I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow IKEA offers a million special posters from the same collection for 20 birr.

Edited by Andrew Hayward.