Interview: Julia Koerner & Kais Al-Rawi — JK3D

Print the
Future








Their world is in 3D – we meet Julia Koerner together with her husband Kais Al-Rawi in their new studio in Vienna’s third district. Not far from the Danube, they’ve started their European branch. From the street we can already see the busy bees inside their studio, all dressed in pitch black clothes. »That’s something that we all learn at ›Die Angewandte‹ [University of Applied Arts, editor’s note]. Everyone at the Architecture Department wears black all the time. After a few years in this crowd, you learn to see the tiny differences between the fabrics. Sometimes you even see a dark grey t-shirt or white socks. Real highlights,” Julia Koerner laughs.






Their Viennese studio counts a team of four: Oliver, Naomi, Georg and Emma. The bustling creatives are surrounded by an all-white environment – tables, chairs and of course, the off-white artworks that they’ve already created by means of 3D printing. The secret protagonist is sitting in the far left corner and is a cutting-edge 3D printer.



It’s an artsy place, the interior is chic and carefully selected.


Viennese Altbau apartments have one thing in common: their stunning ceilings of 3.40 m and long windows. The high wall above the couch features framed projects of the past. We spot the Oscar-winning costume that Black Panther’s Queen Ramonda wore, a close-up of the fully 3D printed HY clutch that won the Red Dot Design Award recently, some beautiful desert shots from the ARID collection and much more. With a cup of tea served by Kais, we sit down for a chat.


You two met at the Architectural Association in London. Julia is from Austria and Kais is from Jordan, but you live and work in two different cities – Vienna & Los Angeles. Why did you decide on them?

JK: Actually there are many Austrian architects in LA. That started a long time ago with emigration, but is still going on. The Austrian Cultural Forum in New York also helps a lot with communication. Kais hasn’t lived in Jordan since High School, he moved to Los Angeles because he got the opportunity to work for Walter P. Moore. Our sustainable vision for our company »JK3D« is to have productions in certain parts of the world to make delivery routes shorter. We started in Salzburg, Austria back in 2015, opened a branch in the US to cover the American market, and now we came back to our roots in the heart of Europe with our studio in Vienna, which is funded by the Vienna Business Agency. As the company grows, we will have a hub in every region. I still have a strong relationship with »Die Angewandte«, as their students are so talented, creative and very advanced, and I want to keep this energy flowing.

KAR: Julia teaches architecture at the UCLA and I work as a design lead in an international engineering practice. California is such a relaxed place to live in. It’s so different from London, New York or Toronto. You always get the feeling of being on vacation. You have the ocean and many national parks right on your doorstep, you practically don’t need to go anywhere for the holidays. And the weather is incredible.





»We mix life and work together easily. We both enjoy a lot of social exchange with people we are professionally affiliated with and have a big professional circle that consists of clients and colleagues.«

You are both a couple and co-creatives. How do you manage that on a day-to-day basis?

KAR: We mix life and work together easily. We both enjoy a lot of social exchange with people we are professionally affiliated with and have a big professional circle that consists of clients and colleagues. Julia’s Austrian heritage is much more balanced as far as work and life goes, we don’t know this lifestyle from the Middle east – everything is quite separated there.

Julia and I influence each other a lot. I am more on the business side of things and Julia is the creative part. Both of us are capricorns, which means that we are extremely stubborn and extremely loud. On the plus side, we are also super productive. We push each other to the next level. Julia is even more of a perfectionist than I am.




The team behind JK (left to right): Naomi Neururer, Julia Körner, Kais Al-Rawi, Georg Popp, Oliver Hamedinger and Emma Sanson (not pictured).




How did you come up with the idea for the HY Clutch?

JK: One of my main inspirations for this product was the tissue layer of portobello mushrooms. And I wanted to create something completely sustainable. Developing a product sounds so simple, but what you don’t see is that you don’t have any references. We started out with a completely different material, by now it is all made out of a plant-based monomaterial which consists of soy beans and corn plants.

When we produce something for our collection, we focus much more on the performance. We worked on the HY Clutch on and off for four years. It took us so long to finish the product that we weren’t able to photograph it just right before the deadline of the Red Dot Design Award. So we put up a photobooth in our studio and shot it there, the deadline for this award really pushed us to finally finish the product. Otherwise, we would probably still be working on it.



Julia Koerner collaboration with costume designer Ruth Carter for »Black Panther« (Photography: Marvel Disney, 2018)




So the workflow is much different to when somebody like Marvel calls you up to ask you to produce costumes for their infamous film “Black Panther”?


JK: The truth is: we had no clue! When we were designing the costume that Angela Bassett (Queen Ramonda) would be wearing, we didn’t know which production studio or film we would be working for. I received a voice message from a Hollywood costume department and they said that they would be working on a movie called »Motherland«. We thought that it would be a niche project at that time. Only when we found out that the name of the actress who would be wearing our costume was »Angela Bassett«, we slowly started to recognise that this might be a much bigger production. Still, we had no idea that it would be this huge: The pre-sale for Black Panther was sold out two months before it came to the cinemas, it won seven Oscars – one of them for costume design – and had a big impact on the Black community as far as Afro-Futurism goes. And it was honestly the first movie we’ve worked on.



»The pre-sale for Black Panther was sold out two months before it came to the cinemas, it won seven Oscars – one of them for costume design – and had a big impact on the Black community as far as Afro-Futurism goes.«







So, you’re not afraid to take chances?
JK: Ever since childhood I have been someone who just jumps into the ocean without being able to swim. I’m always open to try new things.


Does your Austrian heritage influence you in any other ways?
JK: It’s mostly that other cultures think of you as straightforward and organised. We are known as perfectionists who have a big dedication and reliability.






How does nature inform your art? Where do you get your inspiration from?

JK: I’m a really outdoorsy person. What fascinates me most is the diversity in nature. Back in the days, when we used to teach at the AA Visiting school in Jordan, I used to take my students out to the desert to observe rock formations. But I also love the Red Sea, I mean – how unbelievable are the coral formations! We are lucky that we have so many great landscapes right outside our city: Salt Lake, the desert, the national parks. To get inspired, I don’t need to go to a museum, I go to a national park. Maybe that has something to do with my upbringing, as my mother is a biologist? My fabrics are informed by sponges, shells or dried seaweed. We can learn so much if we just take a closer look at what nature creates.


How has the pandemic been for you? Where have you spent your time?

KAR: If we would have continued like we did before, we would have gone straight into burn-out. We noticed a slowdown during Covid-19 that we used to reevaluate our lifestyle and work habits. We spent more time outdoors, which meant much more inspiration. What really helped with starting our own company, was that the acceptance for remote work basically skyrocketed.



»We noticed a slowdown during Covid-19 that we used to reevaluate our lifestyle and work habits. We spent more time outdoors, which meant much more inspiration







How do your clients find you?

JK: It’s actually mostly word-of-mouth. I got a lot of projects because I was referred. Some of my pieces are also exhibited in museums like the MET or the Atlanta High Museum. But sometimes I have mixed feelings about that, because it seems to be a trend to take the human out of the AI. There was an article on my work in the New York Times and it completely failed to communicate that even though the work is 3D printed, there are still humans sitting behind the machines.




How did you first get in touch with 3D printing? And will it soon be a part of our daily lives?


JK: I actually did my first 3D print in 2006. That’s a really long time, but you have to keep on re-innovating yourself without losing the common thread of your work. As far as the future is concerned, I think that the generation of our kids will have 3D printers in their school’s labs. They will learn how to design with it and at some point, some private houses will have their own 3D printer. Most of them probably won’t use it for creating art or fashion, but they will print out tools and other practical stuff. It will take a few more years and then it will be as common as a washing machine.




How sustainable is 3D printing?

JK: Quite sustainable – especially, when it comes to the materials you use. Some people started printing with recycled plastic from the ocean, you can upcycle it. The problem in the Western world is consumerism. We just want something new all the time. In this area, 3D printing can be a good option, as you can recycle your clothes and print new ones from the material. Or some of the materials just easily decompose, so you can replace clothes easier. So – possibilities are endless!






Julia Koernerjk3d
Julia Koerner & Kais Al-Rawi

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