Extruded Design

About

Extrusion shapes material by forcing it through a die, a plate cut with a profile, so that it emerges as a continuous length with the same cross-section all the way along. Aluminium, plastics, clay and soft metals such as lead can all be extruded, then cut to length, bent or joined.

The process became central to 20th-century industry, producing window frames, rails, pipes and the slotted aluminium profiles that hold together shop fittings and furniture. One well-drawn section can do many jobs at once: channels for screws, grooves for glass, hollows for lightness. Some pieces show off the process. Thomas Heatherwick's studio pushed aluminium through an exceptionally large extrusion press to make long benches whose ends twist and tear, shown as Extrusions (2009). A good example uses the profile deliberately, with crisp, constant edges and cut ends that reveal the section.