Mad scientist of thread: inside The Fabrick Lab
How Elaine Yan Ling Ng is rebuilding textile design as a consolidated discipline, moving between craft and advanced technologies.
Elaine Yan Ling Ng runs The Fabrick Lab out of 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. By the founder’s own description, it is the workspace of “mad scientists working with needle and thread.”
The Fabrick Lab treats textile not as a decorative surface but as a structural and narrative material: fibres engineered to hold up a client’s story the way a beam holds up a roof. Their work spans data-driven sculptures, permanent light installations, and thermochromic carpets. The ambition is written into the studio’s own name, a pun on brick, the unit of construction, shifting fabric from a finish to a foundational element.
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Interview with Elaine Yan Ling Ng, founder of The Fabrick Lab:
Your approach is based on merging opposites: technology and craftsmanship, artificial intelligence and nature. How have you learnt to balance these extremes in your practice?
Elaine Yan Ling Ng:
“I don’t view technology and craftsmanship as opposing forces fighting for dominance; rather, I see them as entirely complementary partners. Craftsmanship is anchored in history, heritage, and cultural identity. It holds a depth of knowledge that time cannot buy. Every stitch or traditional practice carries a narrative that is unique, tactile, and occasionally mysterious—which is exactly what sparks human curiosity. Conversely, technology provides the tools to archive, preserve, and scale that knowledge with precise execution.
A perfect example of this balance in practice is Phantasmagoria, the interactive installation we created for The Macallan House in Hong Kong. The Macallan has a profound heritage deeply rooted in the slow, natural poetry of whisky maturation. The clear spirit transforms over decades inside oak casks, absorbing rich hues from pale 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 handmade craft with cutting-edge responsive technology.
The piece features 3,000 unique, handmade non-woven and 3D-knit textile petals, capturing the artisanal soul and unpredictability of nature. We then paired these crafted 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 textile petals, echoing the changing colors of whisky as it distills and ages.
Without the handcrafted textiles, the installation would feel cold and overly industrial—lacking the rich, organic narrative of the brand’s heritage. Without the technology, it would remain static, missing the ability to actively engage the audience’s senses.
By marrying the two, we allowed technology to pulse life into traditional craftsmanship, pulling people into an immersive voyage of the senses that tells a deep, authentic story about time, nature, and the art of making whisky.”
The Fabrick Lab’s projects are very varied compared to other studios, both in typologies and in techniques. Could you walk us through your process from when you receive a brief to a final production?
Elaine Yan Ling Ng:
“Our process is heavily iterative. Because we are dedicated to providing bespoke, authentic storytelling experiences for our clients, we never dive straight into designing a final product. Instead, we use textiles as a narrative medium. While our projects span vastly different typologies, the common thread running through all of them is the use of textile engineering techniques to build a story.
When a new brief arrives, our process follows a deliberate journey:
- Deep Research: We deeply analyze the client’s corporate culture, objectives, and target audience to define the exact emotional impression we want to leave.
- Bespoke Team Building: We assemble a specialized, unique team tailored specifically to the needs of that project.
- Material-First Design: We design the material first. Then, we use that material to engineer the final surface, installation, or product.
We invest a massive amount of time in the research and pre-development phases. This ensures that the final result isn’t just a physical object, but an authentic, material-driven experience that leaves a lasting impression.
This core material philosophy goes back over a decade to our very first major international commission: the SUNDEW installation for Swarovski. SUNDEW crystallized our signature material-first process: if existing manufacturing machinery is unavailable to make what we envision, we will actively hack completely different tools, components, or industrial machines to achieve our goals. For SUNDEW, which mimicked the treacherous beauty of carnivorous plants, we intertwined bio-mimicry, crystal, and heat-activated shape-memory polymers to create kinetic movements.
We proved that textiles shouldn’t be rigidly restricted to traditional structures of loops, warps, and wefts. Instead, fiber and fabric can become dynamic, structural systems. By investing heavily in this research and pre-development stage, we ensure that every client receives a deeply authentic, boundary-pushing material narrative.“
Where do you think AI is useful in your process, versus where do you think it is overhyped or overused?
Elaine Yan Ling Ng:
“AI is a highly effective tool for general comparative studies and data validation; it helps us analyze existing landscapes to verify just how unique our concepts are. However, when it comes to the actual making, AI is not yet particularly helpful to us. Our work is deeply rooted in human history, physical intuition, and the lived experiences of master practitioners. AI can synthesize documented theories, but it cannot translate those abstract concepts into tangible, physical nuances.
Because we create entirely original work, our outputs actually serve as the new data that AI needs 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 underexplored field compared to other ways of making in design? Why or why not?
Elaine Yan Ling Ng:
“Absolutely. When I began 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 treated as an afterthought in the design process. Historically, the industry favored high-volume manufacturing like plastic injection molding.
Today, we are finally seeing a massive shift. With natural resources becoming increasingly scarce, sustainability has forced industries to look for smarter alternatives. Companies are realizing the immense 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 straps and footwear, the design world is only just beginning to unlock the vast structural and functional potential of textiles.“
Finally, in which direction do you think textile design as a discipline will be heading in the next ten years?
Elaine Yan Ling Ng:
“On a macro level, I believe textile design is heading toward a powerful renaissance of “technical craft.” Consumers have become much smarter and more deliberate in their purchasing decisions; the demand for generic, mass-produced items is shrinking. Instead, sustainability and extreme production efficiency will dominate. Textiles possess an inherent ability to reduce manufacturing volume, lower weight, and offer unparalleled design flexibility.
Over the next decade, we will see textiles shift from being merely complementary or decorative components into acting as the primary, structural components across industries—moving heavily into automotive, aerospace, and medical engineering. It will become less about surface decoration and far more about pure functionality.
Furthermore, as robotics and advanced hardware integrate into our daily lives, textiles will play a critical role in making these raw, mechanical systems more durable, agile, and human-centric. Interestingly, the future of these advanced textile structures will be deeply rooted in biomimicry and ancient craft.
Having already successfully developed textiles embedded with metal and optical fibers, my goal for the next ten years in the Fabrick Lab is to continue redefining what the textile supply chain looks like. I want to scale our hybrid digital-making methods into architectural dimensions, revisit my past 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 making.“
