In a world dominated by digital design and sleek finishes, Rory Noble-Turner brings a refreshingly grounded approach to luxury objects, reimagining traditional craftsmanship with modern techniques. His latest work, the Dune Chess Set, captures the raw beauty of sand through a blend of 3D-printed quartz and unique textures. Rory’s creations encourage a sensory experience that goes beyond mere visual appeal, inviting touch and exploration. The Luxe Scoop sat down with Rory to discuss his inspirations, the role of tactility in design, and the future of luxury craftsmanship.
The Luxe Scoop: Your Dune Chess Set captures the essence of sand in its purest form through an undulating landscape and tactile contrasts. Could you share what inspired you to recreate such an elemental experience in a chessboard?
Rory Noble-Turner: Chess is a game that feels as old as time. When we play, there is a sense we are tapping into an experience people have shared for thousands of years. As a designer intrigued by intricate, tactile forms; the sculptural qualities of chess pieces, and their archetypal silhouettes had been a subject of fascination for some time. As a dynamic, ever-shifting natural resource, the elusive nature of sand seemed a fitting material for a game that evolves gradually and unpredictably over time. With each move, tactical repercussions ripple outward, disrupting and reforming an evolving field of play. It seemed a fitting challenge to take a material as formless and fluid as sand, and mold it into something solid and robust, whilst maintaining a sense of transformation and potential.
The Luxe Scoop: 3D-printing quartz sand is an unconventional choice for a luxury object. What excites you most about using such innovative materials and methods, and what challenges did you encounter in bringing this concept to life?
Rory Noble-Turner: I am excited about the appealing tactile qualities that such a granular material can offer, and how this can subvert the traditional notion that luxury objects must generate appeal through pristine finishes and polished surfaces intended to be seen and not touched. 3D printing allows you the freedom to fabricate complex forms and intricate textures otherwise impossible with traditional manufacturing techniques. By harnessing 3D sculpting tools typically reserved for the visual-effects industry, designers are offered an enormous degree of both creative freedom and control that enables you to carefully craft the end product. A major challenge was refining the digital scripts required to generate the rippled textures. What seemed like a relatively straightforward exercise became increasingly complicated as I tried to fine-tune the degree of rippling randomness, its varying density and depth, and the gentle fall-off as it blended into a smooth surface. To create such a natural – or windswept – appearance required months of dedicated problem-solving and refinement with a couple of solutions being discovered only after delving deep into the depths of visual scripting forums.
The Luxe Scoop: You mention that your designs invite physical touch and exploration. In a world that’s becoming increasingly digital, what role does tactility play in connecting people to your creations?
Rory Noble-Turner: As we increasingly spend time jabbing at keyboards and swiping at screens, our sense of touch – and for that matter the sensory perception of our bodies – declines, replaced instead by a disembodied and primarily visual engagement with our devices. Amidst this decline of everyday physical sensation; tactility and intimacy become increasingly important aspects of my creations which attempt to catalyse connection between users, their bodies, and the world around them. Therefore, the perceived experience of touching my work – or at least the triggering of a desire to touch – becomes a crucial factor in each design’s success, as well as its visual appeal.
The Luxe Scoop: The Dune Chess Set offers a striking visual and sensory experience with contrasting textures. How did you approach the design to balance aesthetic appeal with the functionality of a traditional chessboard?
Rory Noble-Turner: For a game of chess to function effectively it’s crucial you clearly differentiate between both opposition pieces, and, the alternate spaces on which those pieces play. In a mono-material set such as this, a binary contrast between rippled and smooth surfaces (reflective of the contrasting states of sand) become the primary signifier of this difference. Next, the size and spacing of these pieces should be such that the board does not appear too cluttered or sparsely populated. Taking this onboard along with my desire to create a striking tableware piece that could be easily displayed, I chose to make the set 75% championship size. This size falls within the acceptable 70-80% size range of commercial sets dedicated for more casual, family use. However, a championship size can be commissioned.
The Luxe Scoop: As someone who draws inspiration from the restless landscapes of Northern Ireland, how do you translate these natural, often rugged, qualities into pieces meant for refined, luxury interiors?
Rory Noble-Turner: I attempt to extract from these qualities the fundamental patterns and textures that make these unique landscapes and their geology so appealing. A textural motif arises with clear parameters that can then be manipulated and accentuated into something that appears both natural yet designed. This texture is then applied to a form with a clear and controlled silhouette allowing you to end up with an object that feels at home within a refined luxury interior. I eventually want to introduce other more typical materials such as stone, metal and glass to make pieces that complement existing material palettes within a space. I recently did exactly this in the form of a marble mantelpiece for a client’s residential interior design.
The Luxe Scoop: Before founding your studio, you worked with acclaimed designers like Zaha Hadid and Ron Arad. How have these experiences shaped your personal design philosophy, especially when creating collectible, tactile objects like the Dune Chess Set?
Rory Noble-Turner: My experience working at such acclaimed creative studios instilled a certain degree of rigour and openness to possibility that has proven essential in pursuing my own design interests and investigations. In particular, it helped me understand the importance of finding your own voice within the work and letting that naturally guide you from one project to the next. Interning at Ron Arad, I was able to see how important it was for him to embrace his own unique idiosyncrasies when it came to creating an authentic body of design work. Nothing could come to fruition without his signature flourish, and that’s what gives his design pieces their value. At Zaha, I was drilled to develop a high degree of precision and clarity within my design experiments in order to get to the core of what a particular design option was offering. It was here that I began seeing the design process as a puzzle or game; something that could be played with despite an unclear outcome, whereby a final design arises from gradual repetition, resolution, and refinement.
The Luxe Scoop: Sustainability is a rising concern in luxury design. With the Dune Chess Set’s use of natural sand materials and advanced fabrication, what are your thoughts on how luxury and sustainability intersect in your work?
Rory Noble-Turner: Due to the efficiency and precision offered by 3D-printing, it will increasingly become the go-to sustainable manufacturing process dominating the 21st century and beyond. With the endless sculptural and textural possibilities that this process offers designers, luxury objects will exhibit increasingly rich and intricate qualities without the need for convoluted, environmentally harmful manufacturing techniques. Furthermore, the ability to print with recycled or waste natural materials could allow luxury objects to become just as much – and perhaps more importantly – a symbol of sustainable, environmentally conscious living, as well as a symbol of wealth or taste.
The Luxe Scoop: The tactile and visual appeal of the Dune Chess Set is truly captivating. In your opinion, what is the relationship between luxury and sensory immersion in today’s high-end design market?
Rory Noble-Turner: Since the advent of Instagram – and more recently TikTok – those of us ‘designophiles’ on social media who will increasingly drive sales in the high-end design market are bombarded by imagery every day. I believe our excessive visual consumption of design through a screen, leaves us drained and yearning for something that can’t be experienced fully without physical engagement. Something more elusive and captivating, that invites exploration and offers, in your words, ‘sensory immersion.’ I believe these tactile, and visually intricate qualities, that invite a closer investigation and engagement will emerge as a key trend as the market progresses.
The Luxe Scoop: What advice would you give to aspiring designers who are interested in blending digital fabrication with traditional design principles to create pieces that feel both timeless and innovative?
Rory Noble-Turner: For those that want to harness cutting-edge digital design tools, it’s important to realise that you only learn through doing. By setting yourself difficult design challenges you’ll be forced to adapt and grow. It’s important to know also that the tool is just that, something to be wielded by the designer to create his or her vision. How to create something timeless is advice far beyond my expertise at this stage in my career. However, I suspect making yourself familiar with what movements and milestones have come before in the design canon so you can extract what lasts and what doesn’t, is one step toward achieving timelessness. Something timeless points back to the past without becoming cliched or nostalgic. Something innovative points to the future without becoming too naive or idealistic. If you can do both, you’re potentially on to something.
The Luxe Scoop: Looking forward, are there any other natural elements or landscapes you’re eager to explore through your design work, perhaps building upon what you’ve started with the Dune Chess Set?
Rory Noble-Turner: I am currently designing a collection of five tableware pieces that continue the language of the Dune Chess Set but in a more refined, functional manner. Beyond that, I am keen to continue the geological theme of the work, with a recent trip to the volcanic island of Lanzarote leaving me brimming with ideas that revolve around the concept of metamorphism. Whilst geology and natural landscapes are an initial inspiration for me, I’m realising that the fundamental qualities of intimacy, intricacy and tactility will form the foundation upon which I build my work moving forwards. As my creative projects gradually grow in scale, I aim to expand out from products to interiors and eventually architecture. Where that takes me, I don’t know, but the Dune Chess Set is just the beginning.
For more information about Rory Noble-Turner, visit https://www.rorynobleturner.com/
