Studio Renovation & AMT LAB

It’s been a fun alternative week at AMT creating a studio space. You can read about the full brief I gave myself here. With the space now spruced, I thought I would talk a bit more about why I want a ‘Lab.’ Firstly, I thought I should pop a quick statistical breakdown of the build.

Time taken:

44.5 hrs of graft

Materials used:

Preloved curtain fabrics & AMT materials from past photoshoots.
Wooden batons and off cuts left by previous owners.
Paint tin dregs, wood filler + caulk dregs from home DIY.
Rug preloved from Mother-in-law.
Storage furniture, shelving brackets, boxes, etc, all from our previous studio space.

Money spent: £95

£10 – 2 x new plants
£25 – 1 x lab coat
£60 – 3 x solar powered led lights for the space

AMT LAB.

Our stock is held with our warehouse team in Essex, and so this space is mainly for me to get creative in. It’s nice to have a space more dedicated to the exploration side of business. As well as the fun bits of course, I still need a space that I can manage the business from, and that houses a small packing station for any items that we send direct from the studio (press samples; gifts; repairs; some limited editions; etc).

Over the course of the last 12 years, we have gathered all sorts of materials that have inspired collections. Together with this we have experimented with the processes and techniques we use. This could be in any combination of form, finish, detail, and colour. To most of our visitors and onlookers these look like boxes of junk, but to us in the studio these boxes contain valuable stories, information, and inspiration.

Since our Less-is-More restructure, we have been thinking long and hard about what future collections look like for us and this is where the Lab will play an important role. It will give me the freedom to explore in an uninterrupted manner. Leaving work out to evolve, encouraging creative procrastination, and giving space to layer experiments, do time trial processes, and progress our techniques more deeply. The next phase of AMT will be the lifecycle… I am keen to explore the depth of our materials and how they start, finish and restart life as a loop or a continuum. I am keen to find some form of innovation in this area. Something that could be rolled out beyond AMT. This kind of project requires time to research and plenty of lateral thinking. I look forward to tapping in along the way. Things like this take a village, and the input of experts. This is what excites me as much as the product design and development. The idea of learning valuable skills and understanding about how to be better, from experts in their fields, is something we have always looked for as a creative business.

As always, I look forward to bringing you all on this journey with us…