Specula Wall

Union City, NJ, 2021 | Role: Design-assist and fabrication

Behin Ha, a New York-area architecture studio, designed this feature wall in the entry lobby of an office fit-out for an area Ear, Nose, and Throat Doctor. Afoam participated in an extensive mock-up and testing process involving multiple iterations and several large-scale samples as the design was refined.

The wall as built consists of powder-coated, laser-perforated metal panels that frame over 10,000 black plastic specula, used by doctors for examining the inside of the ear. These specula are recessed at varying depths into the powder-coated metal panels to create a 3d pattern derived from an image of book-matched stone, while inverted specula spell out the name of the practice.

Afoam was responsible for coordinating the assembly and installation process, including fabricating custom CNC-milled panels that set the depth of the specula, creating and executing on a multi-step assembly process to combine these panels with laser-cut powder coated aluminum provided by Milgo Bufkin, and installing the thousands of specula.

Materials: 10,000 plastic specula, laser-cut powder coated aluminum, plywood substrate, poplar trim