Bankston and FOR SCALE presented A Manifesto on Touch during NYCxDESIGN, an installation examining architectural hardware through materiality, craftsmanship, and physical interaction. The exhibition featured collaborative collections developed with Edition Office, Sans-Arc Studio, CIVILIAN, and YSG, presenting door levers, pulls, knobs, and joinery pieces as sculptural design objects. Timber, bronze, aluminum, marble, chrome, nickel, and bone appeared throughout the installation, while custom furniture and mirrors incorporated hardware pieces directly into the exhibition environment.
The presentation centered on a written manifesto by FOR SCALE founder David Michon, displayed across walls and mirrors throughout the space. Featured collections included Casts by Edition Office, produced through sand-cast bronze and aluminum; Super by Sans-Arc Studio, which draws from the Radical Design movement; Hemispheres by CIVILIAN, a 12-piece series combining architectural forms with natural and industrial materials; and The Streaks by YSG, a collection of timber and bronze hardware defined by striped banding and handcrafted production.
Architectural Hardware Designs
A Manifesto on Touch Presented Bankston’s Collaborative Hardware
Trend Themes
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Material-centric Hardware — The prominence of timber, bronze, aluminum and bone reframes hardware as premium tactile components that could shift value toward material selection and artisanal finishing.
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Sculptural Functionalism — Designing levers, pulls and knobs as sculptural objects blurs the line between art and utility and opens demand for pieces that carry gallery-level provenance.
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Designer-manufacturer Collaborations — Cross-disciplinary partnerships producing limited collections create narrative-rich provenance that has the potential to upend standardized mass-production models.
Industry Implications
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Architectural Hardware Manufacturing — Fabrication processes like sand-cast bronze and hand-finishing suggest a move from high-volume runs to boutique production workflows and batch customization.
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Luxury Interior Design — Treating hardware as focal, collectible elements positions interiors to command higher margins through curated, material-led installations.
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Custom Furniture Production — Integrating bespoke hardware directly into furniture design encourages vertically unified artifacts where joinery and fittings are conceived as a single expressive system.