One to watch: Brooklyn Studio Outgoing

At Outgoing, a small studio on the edge of the post-industrial Gowanus district of Brooklyn, multidisciplinary talents and studio founders Brett Gui Xin and Del Hardin Hoyle experiment intensively with materials such as wood and textile, as well as readily available hardware components.

Get to know the creative duo behind the design studio Outgoing

Under the auspices of the newly founded studio, the life and creative partners have brought together their respective skills and professional backgrounds to consolidate this experimental approach not only in object design. At home in nearby Bed Stuy, the so-called “clean studio,” the duo creates immersive work of art installations; compose and record music; and conduct performative drawing experiments to better understand each other. Those of us who are currently connected, especially in our personal and professional lives, could take a lesson from their playbook.

(Image credit: Courtesy of the artists)

“Since meeting in 2016, we have been deeply involved in each other’s studio practices; “We support each other in one way or another,” says Hardin Hoyle. “Our ideas about design, work ethic, ambition and often aesthetics often coincide.” We both share a love of detail, humor and color; although it’s probably the thing we agree on most.”

While San Francisco-born Gui’s emphatically experimental, materials-oriented practice and role as a purveyor focused primarily on ceramics, textiles, sculpture, and leather goods, but also community programming through hands-on workshops. His work often incorporated the operatic all-encompassing and sensory elements of furniture, sculpture, sound/music, drawing and plant life.

(Image credit: Courtesy of the artists)

The creative duo employs a wild palette of bright colors and unexpected textures, abundant in everything from the OG10 fringed three-body pillow to a series of yet-to-be-codified round wooden stools crafted from layers of discarded wood from the streets of New York are. and in which nail holes were painted over with strong paint.

This process will also be translated into a wooden table subtly planed several times and stained pink, which will eventually have a multi-colored Plexiglas tile covering. A similar material, strips of soft Italian glass, often used as a base component, have been given a new function in the expressive, iterative og03 incense holder collection. One question often influences another and even influences the respective practice as a manufacturer and product engineer.

Another concept of the work expands on the unexpected light-diffusing properties of soft Italian glass. Envisioning these endlessly iterative forms as elements connected to a closed lightbox, the duo imagined that this new formula could be expanded to much larger, perhaps even interactive, installations. This demonstration of world-building is consistent with the speculative practice of noted talents Fiona Raby and Anthony Dunne, the forerunners of the Critical Design movement, and with which both Gui Xin and Hardin Hoyle came into contact while studying at Parsons School of Design .

(Image credit: Courtesy of the artists)

Anchored on a round mirror on the wall above their main workstations was the og02 phase lamp, which featured prominently as part of the May 2024 series Head Hi Lamp Show – demonstrates the multifunctional potential of its repurposed hook-screw legs and how much its colorful theatrical gel shades can amplify light.

(Image credit: Courtesy of the artist)

Everything here is wonderfully ad hoc and subliminal, suggesting completely new forms and functions. The unexpected application of otherwise overlooked and recycled materials combines with reformulated and reinterpreted centuries-old craft techniques to develop paradigm-shifting concepts that have the potential to scale and even change user behavior.

(Image credit: Courtesy of the artist)

“Outgoing is a joyful pursuit of our shared creative impulses,” says Gui Xi. “Originally, Outgoing was intended to be the physical and metaphorical place where we develop and publish edition products.” This idea has evolved into a studio practice that is open and encourages ideas in all formats, including providing our services for private commissions and collaborations. If it’s Brett and Del together then it’s outgoing.’