Joey Aji is a Brooklyn-based designer working between sculpture and furniture, building pieces that start with architectural fragments and end somewhere much less fixed. Domes, columns, carved ornament, references that feel old and familiar, but the way he handles them pushes them into a different place entirely.
A lot of the work begins digitally. He models forms pulled from things like Gothic corbels or classical domes, then starts adjusting them, stretching, compressing, sharpening, until they feel slightly off. From there, they’re 3D printed and brought back into the studio, where the real shift happens. Each piece is coated and hand-finished with cement, marble dust, and resin until the surface loses that printed feel and starts reading as something solid, closer to stone than plastic. That transformation is kind of wild to see in person.
What’s interesting is how the references don’t sit cleanly in one period. You’ll catch hints of Baroque curves, liturgical forms, even something almost prehistoric or biomorphic, but nothing lands in a way that feels literal. It’s more like everything is layered together and flattened into the same moment. Familiar, but hard to pin down. Maybe it’s a symptom of being online too long, Joey says, having access to ornament and architecture from every period at once. That access collapses time.
That comes through clearly in pieces like the Dome Lamp, Spike Lamp, and Blade Table. They function, but they don’t feel purely functional. The Dome Lamp reads almost like a scaled-down structure. The shelf feels closer to a fragment pulled from a wall than something designed to hold objects. The table has this carved, almost eroded quality to it, even though it’s built up rather than carved down.
There’s also a personal layer running through it. Growing up Syrian American around Orthodox and Mediterranean architecture, those forms carry a certain weight, even as they’re translated through digital tools and reshaped in the studio. It’s less about preserving them and more about figuring out what happens to those references once they’re pushed through a completely different process. There’s something sacrilegious about scanning and distorting forms that feel sacred, but it mirrors how things exist online: compressed, circulated, re-saved.
One of those practices that feels almost fully formed right out of the gate. A clear point of view, strong material language, and a way of working that doesn’t lean too heavily on either digital or hand, but sits somewhere in between. We’re excited to see how this develops.
What drew you to the intersection of historical architectural research and digital fabrication?
Maybe it’s a symptom of being on the internet too long – having access to ornament and architecture from every period at once. That kind of access has way of collapsing time.
I think in my work I am trying to question the linear nature of time, reordering aesthetic periods and compressing historical or archetypal forms: baroque and gothic architecture, liturgical forms, pre-historic or almost primordial biomorphic shapes, shapes that feel futuristic and digital.
I often get this disorienting feeling that is like a nostalgia for a time that never existed. There’s a fear and a relief when you see an object that feels like it comes from that nonexistent time.
You’ve spoken about growing up Syrian American around Orthodox and Catholic architecture, where visual language carries a lot of weight and authority. How does working with those inherited forms through digital tools change your relationship to them?
Growing up Syrian American, and spending time in Syria visiting Eastern Orthodox churches, those aesthetics have always stayed with me. Domes, stone, carved ornament – the aesthetics carried a weight for me, even when my direct relationship to orthodoxy and the culture might have been inconsistent.
There’s something a bit sacrilegious about scanning, compressing, and distorting forms that feel so sacred – which is compelling. It mirrors how things exist online – compressed, circulated, re-saved, re-uploaded; it’s this game of telephone and it is interesting to see the archetype survive this compression.
Digitizing these forms translates them into a language I feel more fluent in. Then scaling them down, making them physical again and hanging them on the wall. I get to hold on to a form that was once very heavy and inaccessible.
Can you walk us through how a piece like Shelf 1 or the Dome Lamp actually comes together, from the initial architectural fragment you’re referencing to the finished object?
The shelves are my attempt to recreate Gothic corbels using parametric design. I take references and rebuild them algorithmically in CAD.
Once you have the basic form, you can tweak the variables, which creates the distortions and aggressiveness.
I made the Dome Lamp after visiting the Pantheon. It was this impossible form when it was built, but now that curve is just a Bézier curve tool, the same one I played with in MS Paint in third grade – really simple but it still kind of feels impossible.
The goal is to take a form that feels distinctly digital and render it physically.
Your pieces have this industrial, stone-like quality despite starting as digital 3D models. What’s your process for hand-finishing with cement and eco-resin to achieve that transformation from digital to physical?
I have a real aversion to the look of 3D printed things. There is something offensive about the layer lines – I think it has to do with how it makes me confront the use of so much plastic. Inversely, I have aways been attracted to stone, the cold smoothness. But working with a solid block of granite isn’t very practical – especially for some of the forms I am looking for.
So I use a combination of mineral-based materials – calcium carbonate, marble powder, plasters – and resins to coat forms that start as 3D prints. It gives me the look and durability of stone without the weight, and lets me create dramatic shapes that would be nearly impossible to carve from stone.
Before focusing on sculptural work, you were involved in creative directing and website creation. How has that background influenced the way you approach making physical objects?
It has helped a lot on the technical side – I am always pushing for the latest parametric and generative design tools and experimenting with new 3d print methods and materials.
On the branding side – I have it stuck in my head that consistency and some sort of through-line that connects the work is important – but this is something i struggle with implementing because I so easily get pulled in in different directions.
You’ve presented work at fairs and galleries. How do you think about where your pieces should be shown or sold, and where do you want your practice to go from here?
I want to move towards more of a dual practice that separates furniture and sculpture. Sculptures with no utility and furniture that is more practical and more refined.
It seems obvious but I am just now coming around to the idea that it is okay to make stuff that people actually want to buy. The distinction of one off sculptural pieces and scalable furniture has helped me accept this.
This push towards refinement has opened the doors for placements in some established galleries and showrooms – which is exciting.
Looking at the body of work you’re building now, what forms or architectural references are calling to you that you haven’t explored yet?
I would love to make stuff that feels distinctly Middle Eastern, vaults and and domes with with heavy deliberate shadows.
That being said I think ultimately I hope to learn to design in a way that is maybe less calculated. I think the best work is the kind that leaves you unsure of the origin but still feels familiar.
