Niceworkshop: Redefining Materiality Through Experimental Design

In an age of excess — of production, consumption, waste — the cultural conversation is shifting rapidly. From fashion to architecture, industry to industry, people are beginning to question the regimes that have ruled how we live: the disposable culture, the unthinking pursuit of the new, the downgrading of what is. In addition to an environmental necessity, reuse and circularity are becoming social, cultural, and even political actions. They're acts of quiet resistance to the dominant stories of velocity, disposability, and relentless growth.

It's against this wider cultural backdrop that Seoul-based design studio Niceworkshop (@niceworkshop_) is carving out a reputation for itself. Specializing in experimental pieces that challenge conventional notions of materiality, the studio is slowly but surely building its own unique and recognizable design vocabulary. Niceworkshop's unique selling point lies in their insistence on investigating the tactile properties of the materials they work with. Behind the studio's experimentation and new material explorations is its founder and creative mastermind Hyunseog Oh (@ohhyunseog), and business director Sangmyeong Yoo, who informs and guides the growth of the studio.

Among their most celebrated works is the Bolt Series, a series that transforms mundane full-threaded bolts into sculptural and useful objects. By exceeding this utilitarian aspect, Niceworkshop. reimagines industrial hardware as the background for refined design, erasing the line between mass production and craftsmanship. Equally as fascinating is the Affordance Series, an interactive furniture series that invites touch, movement, and interaction. Drawing on the "affordance" theory — the affordance in an object to suggest its use — this series encourages participation, play and investigation, creating a living process between user and object. 

With Neo Naturalism, the brand, introduces a body of work immovably rooted in the forms, irregularities, and quiet processes of nature. For the studio, nature is not a referent — it is an actual co-conspirator. Through meticulous, hands-on craftsmanship, they recognize the raw textures, asymmetries, and quiet rhythms inherent in nature materials, translating them into modern objects that relate calm, authenticity, and tactile depth.

In their latest series, Niceworkshop combines insulation and aluminum waste to create modular blocks by way of an exposed concrete process. Produced in three different sizes, the blocks can be assembled into flexible pieces of furniture like sofas, benches, and chairs. Through this design, Niceworkshop pushes the use of aluminum formwork outside of building, presenting a new means of rethinking industrial waste as something functional to use daily. Part of its realization of material potential, Niceworkshop teamed up with FORMAT, a social enterprise label established by Sungji Alfex, a company recognized for aluminum formwork and historical recycling heritage. Sungji Alfex has built its name on a resources-cycling production and leasing system where sustainability is not an option, but a cornerstone of its enterprise.

FORMAT carries this philosophy to an even higher plane, driven by a stated mission: to establish a new way of working with materials — in form, in intention, and in imagination. Positioned on the ideas spectrum between FORM and AT, FORMAT's identity is intentionally flexible, open, and unencumbered by category or size. From stationery to large spaces, FORMAT's creative world has no limits, constantly collaborating with a broad range of materials and makers to create new possibilities for a future that can be more productive.In a planet beset by overproduction, excess, and the speeding-up effects of climate change, Niceworkshop's partnership with FORMAT transcends a design endeavor — it's an understated yet potent act of resistance. It questions our conditioned fast-consumption culture: to create, use, and dispose without compunction. By placing reuse and transformation of material at the center of their work — not as a movement, but as a value — they challenge us to rethink what we're designing, how we're designing, and for whom we're designing.

This communal mindset manifests in their furniture line, which is derived from aluminum formwork (AL-FORM) — a norm for the making of concrete molds for architectural framing. Inspired by the natural flow of Production – Rental – Repair – Dissolution – Reproduction, Niceworkshop transforms FORMAT's aluminum formwork, conventionally used in building construction sites, into modular units of furniture. Here, the aluminum formwork is recycled multiple times after it has been shot blasted and undergone flattening processes that remove residual concrete. The surface becomes marked and darkened in texture through pouring and curing of concrete over time — tangible evidence of its working life.This project introduces two distinct lines: the Aged Form Line, which preserves the enduring texture of aged, reclaimed aluminum, and the New Form Line, which employs aluminum formwork reproduced through recycling. Together, these lines come to life in four essential furniture pieces: a lounge chair, dining chair, table, and bench.

This is all part of a growing cultural and political shift happening around the globe. Programs like HouseEurope!, an European Citizens' Initiative, are making refurbishment and reuse not just easier but also less expensive and more socially viable. They demand new law to prioritize the reuse of our existing buildings, claiming that demolishing our built heritage is as outdated as food waste, animal testing, or throwaway plastics. Both niceworkshop. and HouseEurope! remind us that the space and material we already have aren't things to be gotten rid of — they are materials full of untapped potential. In this shared vision, reuse isn't merely a tactic; it's a new way of life, one in which longevity, caring, and the subtle elegance of giving things second chances are valued.

What connects all their projects is a deep commitment to originality and a constant desire to push the limits of what design can be. They are not interested in trends or repeating what already exists. Instead, they follow their own path — one built on material research, playful experimentation, and hands-on curiosity that challenges the usual rules of the global design world. Whether they are transforming industrial waste, creating interactive objects that invite participation, or learning from the quiet intelligence of nature, Niceworkshop is steadily building a thoughtful and radical design language.

Niceworkshop’s material-driven approach found a new stage at Paris Fashion Week SS26 through a collaboration with fashion brand _J.L-A.L_. For Mille Chaises presentation, which explored the chair as a spatial system, Niceworkshop designed a sculptural set using their AL-scrap series — modular furniture blocks made from reused aluminum scrap. The set reversed conventional runway norms: the audience stood while models sat, blurring the line between garment and structure. With exposed materials and raw textures, the collaboration embodied both studios’ shared interest in precision, reuse, and the spatial dimension of design.

And as they keep questioning form, function, and material, maybe they’re also asking us to slow down and think: In a world obsessed with speed, convenience, and appearance, what does it really mean to live with the objects around us? What do we keep, what do we discard, and what stories are we choosing to carry forward?

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Words: Simone Lorusso