Ceci n’est pas un fossile
The bone-like lattice of Particle-Trail, printed in stone for Marmomac 2024 with Alessandro Premier, University of Auckland.
A lattice that looks like the inside of a bone, or a fossil of one. It is neither: it was printed. Ceci n’est pas un fossile is the second version of Particle-Trail, a design by Alessandro Premier and colleagues at the University of Auckland, shown at Marmomac 2024 in Verona.
The first Particle-Trail, in 2023, was milled from solid travertine: a table carried by two arches whose porous structure follows the spongy tissue inside bone. Milling such a form means cutting most of the block away, and the tool can only reach as deep as its own length. The second version takes the opposite route. The lattice is built up layer by layer from stone powder, so there is no block to remove, no tool to reach in, and cavities can run all the way through the piece. The same family of forms becomes more open than a cutter allows, and is made without the waste that carving it produces.
