Tom Vaughan

Tom Vaughan (1976) is a British designer/maker based in East London.

 

He started his training with cabinet making at the London guildhall university, continuing to three-dimensional design at Brighton University followed by a master's degree at the Royal College of Art under the tutelage of Ron Arad. He then founded his practice, Object Studio.

 

Object Studio is a design practice, a workshop for making, a laboratory for experimentation, exploring the convergence of traditional craft and modern manufacturing. Tom and his team work on commission for institutions, galleries and private clients to fabricate complex three-dimensional works - furniture, sculpture, prototypes - in wood, metals and plastics. Tom brings a design education to the workshop and manufacturing knowledge to the studio, creating total synergy and a depth of understanding of process-led design. Emphasis is on experimentation and the potential of manufacturing tools to craft things of permanence, objects of beauty.

 

It is rare to find a design practice where traditional and modern digital manufacturing techniques are so entwined. And rarer still to find a practice that both designs and fabricates the works in house.

 

Tom's practice explores the intersection of naturalism and abstraction. But for the most part, we must experience it as a manifestation of ideas and a thing of use - sculpture, furniture - born from experiment, lack, need and curiosity.

 

Object Studio has forged a reputation designing and building concept gallery pieces and one-off commissions for homes that articulate the synergy between modern design and natural grain.