Work by AUS faculty member acquired by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York recently acquired two pieces of work by American University of Sharjah (AUS) faculty member Ammar Kalo, for its permanent collection. The selected pieces were Kalo’s Stratum Chair and N-Bowl selected for their innovative design process.

Kalo, Assistant Professor of Architecture at the College of Architecture, Art and Design (CAAD), created the Stratum chair as a piece of furniture that expresses its function and the material it uses in a very organic fashion. “The unique formal and visual qualities of the chair are derived from the ways in which the plywood strata layers are carved to highlight the product's utilitarian features. Its termination at the ground with three legs also accentuates the design's edginess and gives it a sense of delicate balance,” said Kalo.

“N-Bowls are robotically formed sheet of brass and copper which showcase tool marks throughout the object and recall the qualities of handcrafted objects. A vast array of unique design iterations can be generated through the parametric design workflow setup for the project. The surface textures are the outcome of the robotic forming toolpaths,” said Kalo, describing his other piece.

“My congratulations to Professor Ammar Kalo on this very notable achievement. It brings prestige to the College of Architecture, Art and Design and is a reflection of CAAD’s support for creative work as valued and valuable scholarship,” said Dr. Varkki George Pallathucheril, Dean of CAAD.

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is the only museum in the United States devoted to historical and contemporary design and is a part of the Smithsonian Institution, the most visited museum complex in the world. Cooper Hewitt's Product Design and Decorative Arts department houses the museum's three-dimensional holdings—over 30,000 objects, across media, from around the world and spanning 24 centuries.

Kalo received his Bachelor of Architecture from AUS and is currently the Director of CAAD Labs at AUS, where he also teaches classes focused on digital fabrication. Last year, Kalo also won the highly anticipated Emerging Designer of the Year Award at the Harper's Bazaar Interiors Awards 2015 for his technologically advanced designs, most notably his Stratum chair.