Be there or be square.

Akoko is a superbly exceptional London restaurant serving up a dining experience based on the West African heritage of founder Aji Akokomi. We have worked together over the past years on various projects for the restaurant, including a small pedestal and a roughly carved bowl. This time around, Aji needed his own version of our Brikk plate for a signature dish and sent us a few exquisite sketches of what he had in mind. In our development we started with a few 3d-drawings to illustrate the two options for the square version of Brikk, and went on to cardboard models and a paper version of the signature dish to get a feeling of the size and serving. Once the 3d-drawing goes into print (yes, 3d-print that is) there is no way back, so it is important to get it just right before taking that step.

This is the original Brikk plate, a rectangular brick-looking plate where roughly compressed clay meets an ultra-precise geometric shape.

The 3d-drawings of original Brikk to the right and the two options for the square version to the left.

Cardboard models of both options of the Brikk. A crumbled piece of paper in approximately the right size was used to illustrate the dish.

Printed plastic model of the square Brikk. The base is not part of the product, but is neede in the plaster mould making.

We make our own production plaster moulds by casting plaster over the 3d-printed model.

The gang: cardboard model, 3d-printed plastic model, plaster production mould and finished product.

In the making in our microfactory. Clay is manually compressed into the ultra-precise geometric moulds.

Fresh out of firing! When making something so square (and so many) it is quite tempting to build a little tower.

Restaurant tablewareTonje Sandberg28 September 2023