Elaine Yan Ling Ng is running The Fabrick Lab from a factory unit in Kwai Hing, on the industrial fringe of Hong Kong, where a jacquard loom and a 3D printer share the same room. According to the founder’s own description, it is his workplace “mad scientists working with needle and thread”.
Fabrick Lab treats the textile not as a decorative surface, but as a structural and narrative material: fibers designed to hold up a client’s story like a beam holds up a ceiling. Their work includes data-driven sculptures, permanent light installations and thermochromic carpets. The ambition is written in the name of the studio itself, a pun on the brick, the manufacturing unit, changing the fabric from a finish to a key element.
Elaine Yan Ling Ng © The Fabrick Lab
Phantasmagoria © The Fabrick Lab
Phantasmagoria © The Fabrick Lab
Reverie © The Fabrick Lab
Reverie © The Fabrick Lab
Sundew © The Fabrick Lab, ph. Stanley Cheng
Sundew © The Fabrick Lab, ph. Stanley Cheng
The researchers © The Fabrick Lab
Interview with Elaine Yan Ling Ng, founder of The Fabrick Lab:
Your approach is based on the fusion of opposites: technology and craftsmanship, artificial intelligence and nature. How have you learned to balance these extremes in your practice?
Elaine Yan Ling Of:
“I don’t see technology and craftsmanship as opposing forces fighting for dominance. Rather, I see them as completely complementary partners. Craft is anchored in history, heritage, and cultural identity. It has a depth of knowledge that time cannot buy. Each stitch or traditional practice carries a narrative that is unique, tactile, authentic, and circumstantial. Instead, technology provides the tools to archive, preserve, and scaling that knowledge with accurate execution.
A perfect example of this balance in action is Phantasmagoriathe interactive installation we created for The Macallan House in Hong Kong; The Macallan has a deep heritage deeply rooted in the slow, natural poetry of whiskey maturation. The pure spirit is transformed for decades in oak casks, absorbing rich hues from soft gold to deep burgundy through its silent interaction with wood grain, humidity and temperature. To translate this invisible heritage into a tangible human experience, we had to combine meticulous hand-craftsmanship with state-of-the-art responsive technology.
The piece features 3,000 unique, handcrafted non-woven and 3D woven fabric petals, capturing the artisanal soul and unpredictability of nature. We then combined these fabricated components with custom LED programming and 3D-printed recyclable polycarbonate modules. When visitors move near the sculpture or swirl their glasses, sensors trigger an undulating flow of light and shadow across the petals of the fabric, echoing the changing colors of the whiskey as it distills and ages.
Without the handmade fabrics, the installation would feel cold and overly industrial – without the rich, organic narrative of the brand’s heritage. Without technology, it would remain static, losing the ability to actively engage the audience’s senses.
By marrying the two, we’ve enabled technology to breathe life into traditional craft, taking people on an exciting sensory journey that tells a deep, authentic story about time, nature and the art of whiskey making.”
Fabrick Lab’s works are very different compared to other studios, both in typologies and techniques. Could you walk us through your process from getting a brief to final production?
Elaine Yan Ling Of:
“Our process is very iterative. Because we are dedicated to providing personalized, authentic storytelling experiences for our clients, we never dive straight into designing a final product. Instead, we use textiles as a storytelling medium. While our projects span very different typologies, the common thread that runs through them all is the use of textile engineering techniques to build a story.
When a new brief arrives, our process follows a purposeful journey:
- Deep Research: We deeply analyze the client’s company culture, goals and target audience to determine the exact emotional impression we want to leave.
- Bespoke Team Building: We assemble a skilled, unique team tailored specifically to the needs of this project.
- Material-First Design: We design the material first. We then use this material to design the final surface, installation or product.
We invest a huge amount of time in the research and pre-development phases. This ensures that the end result is not just a physical object, but an authentic, material-based experience that leaves a lasting impression.
This core hardware philosophy goes back a decade to our first major international commission: the SUNDEW facility for Swarovski. SUNDEW crystallized the hardware-first signature process: if existing manufacturing machinery isn’t available to make what we envision, we’ll actively hack entirely different tools, components, or industrial machines to achieve our goals. For SUNDEW, which mimicked the insidious beauty of carnivorous plants, we combined biomimicry, crystal and heat-activated shape memory polymers to create kinetic movements.
We demonstrated that textiles should not be strictly limited to traditional loop, warp and weft structures. Instead, fibers and fabric can become dynamic, structural systems. By investing heavily in this stage of research and pre-development, we ensure that every customer receives a deeply authentic narrative of boundary-pushing material.“
Where do you think AI is useful in your process, versus where do you think it’s overused or overused?
Elaine Yan Ling Of:
“AI is an extremely effective tool for general comparative studies and data validation. It helps us analyze existing landscapes to verify how unique our concepts are. However, when it comes to actual construction, AI does not yet help us. tangible, natural nuances.
Because we create entirely original work, our results actually act as the new data for AI to learn from. In terms of true physical creation, AI needs human craftsmen more than the other way around.“
Do you think textiles are an under-explored area compared to other ways of making in design? Why or why not?
Elaine Yan Ling Of:
“Absolutely. When I started working as a color, material and finish designer about a decade ago, the role itself was quite rare in Asia, and even in Europe, materials were often seen as an afterthought in the design process. Historically, the industry favored high-volume manufacturing such as plastic injection molding.
Today, we are finally seeing a huge change. As natural resources become increasingly scarce, sustainability has forced industries to look for smarter alternatives. Companies are realizing the huge advantages of textiles: their lightweight, compact nature and flexible construction significantly reduce both material waste and product weight. From advanced 3D knitting used in medical applications to wearable technical belts and footwear, the design world is just beginning to unlock the vast structural and functional potential of textiles.“
Finally, where do you think textile design as an industry will go in the next ten years?
Elaine Yan Ling Of:
“On a macro level, I believe that textile design is heading for a strong renaissance of ‘technical art’. Consumers have become much smarter and more aware in their purchasing decisions. demand for mass-produced generics shrinks. Instead, sustainability and extreme production efficiency will dominate. Textiles have an inherent ability to reduce production volume, lower weight and offer unparalleled design flexibility.
Over the next decade, we will see textiles shift from merely complementary or decorative components to functional as primary, building blocks in all industries – moving heavily into automotive, aerospace and medical engineering. It will become less approx surface decoration and much more about pure functionality.
Furthermore, as robotics and advanced hardware become integrated into our daily lives, textiles will play a critical role in making these crude, mechanical systems more durable, flexible and human-centric. Interestingly, the future of these advanced textile constructions will be deeply rooted in biomimicry and ancient art.
Having already successfully developed textiles embedded with metal and fiber optics, my goal for the next ten years to Fabrick Lab is to continue redefining the shape of the textile supply chain. I want to scale our hybrid digital fabrication methods to architectural dimensions, revisit my previous research with shape memory alloys, and ultimately document this methodology in a book—proving that the intersection of ancient heritage and progressive technology can fundamentally revolutionize the future of fabrication.“
