3D Printing vs Metal Fabrication

People often ask whether AERIS is a 3D-printing brand or a metal brand. The honest answer is that we are a design brand — and we use whichever process gives the design the best result.

3D printing and metal fabrication are two very different ways of making an object. Understanding what each does well is the reason our range can move from a delicate woven lampshade to a solid, weight-bearing table without compromise.

3D printing: form and detail

3D printing builds a part up layer by layer. Its great strength is geometry — intricate weaves, curves and textures that would be difficult or impossible to make any other way. We print our lamp shades in plant-based PLA, which lets us design forms that diffuse light beautifully and give each lamp its sculptural character. It is ideal for detail, texture and one-of-a-kind forms made to order.

Metal fabrication: strength and structure

Metal fabrication is a subtractive and forming process: sheet and tube are cut, bent, formed and welded into a structure. Its strength is exactly that — strength. Aluminium, steel and galvanised iron give us load-bearing frames, clean straight lines and a substantial, planted feel. It is what makes a console or coffee table genuinely furniture rather than decoration.

Why we use both — often in one piece

The interesting work happens where the two meet. A 3D-printed shade can sit on a fabricated metal base; a printed detail can finish a metal object. Each process covers the other's limits: printing brings the form, metal brings the structure, and hand assembly and finishing bring them together into a single resolved product.

The point is the design, not the machine

So we do not start by choosing a process. We start with the design and ask which tool — or combination of tools — will realise it best. That is why 3D printing is one capability at AERIS, never the whole story.