Aluminum foam in furniture and objects: the panel is the piece

Most architectural materials become difficult when you shrink them to furniture scale. Stone gets heavy, sheet metal needs a frame, composites need an edge. Aluminum foam goes the other way. At 20 mm it is stiff enough to be a surface in its own right, light enough to hang on an ordinary hinge, and it cuts to the piece with the tools a furniture maker already owns.

What makes it work at this scale

• Stiffness for its weight. A foam panel resists bending far better than its weight suggests, which is what a tabletop, a door leaf or a shelf actually needs.
• Edges that are finished when they are cut. The sawn edge shows the cell structure in section. On a piece of furniture that is often the best part.
• Metal without a metal shop. It saws, routs, drills and sands. A cabinetmaker can build with it.
• No finish to maintain. Bare aluminum, cleaned with water. No lacquer, no oil, no re-coating.

Pieces where it has been used

Tables and consoles. A single panel as a top on a slim steel or timber frame, or a thicker built-up top with the foam exposed on the edge. Doors and cabinet fronts. Foam panels hung on standard hardware, with an aluminum channel at the edge where hands land. Lighting. The cells scatter and diffuse light passing across the surface, so a foam panel as a lamp face or a sconce back reads as texture rather than glare. Speaker faces and acoustic objects. An open cellular surface in front of a driver that is a material rather than a fabric.

Choosing a grade

Fine cell is the one for things that are handled, because the surface is even and the edges stay crisp. Medium is the all-rounder and is what most makers start with. Coarse is for pieces that are meant to be looked at more than touched: a panel in a frame, a lamp face, a screen.

Starting

The Designer Kit exists for this. Three 300 × 300 × 20 mm panels, one in each grade, are enough to make a first object, test a joint, and decide. Larger panels and cut-to-size pieces are quoted per project. For the other places the material is used, see Applications.

Hold the material before you decide. The Standard Sample Kit is one 300 × 300 × 20 mm panel; the Designer Kit is three cell grades side by side. Both ship free within the United States.