The Influence of Brutalist Architecture on Nvll + Void Jewelry Design

Architecture has always shaped the way I see the world. Growing up in an architectural family, with both of my parents working within the field, I was surrounded by conversations about space, material, structure, and the relationship between people and the environments they inhabit. Long before I began making jewelry, architecture had already trained my eye - teaching me to notice proportion, rhythm, texture, tension, and the quiet emotional weight that objects and spaces can carry.

HINGE RING

Among all architectural movements, Brutalism has had perhaps the deepest influence on my work.

There’s something beautifully human about Brutalist architecture. Despite its reputation for coldness, I’ve always found these structures emotional, they’ re rigid but slowly eroding under time and weather. Exposed concrete, rusting steel, fractured surfaces, structural repetition; these materials reveal their aging openly rather than concealing it. They carry history visibly.

That relationship between permanence and decay runs strongly throughout Nvll + Void.

REBAR EDGE

The Rebar collection was heavily informed by these ideas. Inspired by exposed reinforcement bars hidden within concrete structures, the pieces reference the skeletal frameworks that quietly hold buildings together. Rebar itself is rarely intended to be seen, but when it’s exposed through decay or demolition, it becomes strangely beautiful, a raw trace of human construction left behind after time has stripped away the surface. I love the hidden strength that lives just beneath the surface.

I’m deeply drawn to those moments where structures begin to reveal their mortality.

Many of my pieces explore corroded textures, fractured surfaces, oxidised forms, and imperfect finishes because I’m interested in how objects record time. Jewelry, much like architecture, becomes altered through wear, contact, and memory. A polished surface eventually softens. Sharp edges dull. Silver darkens. Pieces accumulate traces of the body and the life lived around them.

That transience is central to my work.

REBAR BRUTE

It’s something that connects the more industrial aspects of Nvll + Void to my memorial jewelry practice. Whether I’m creating a piece inspired by decaying urban environments or designing a deeply personal memorial object, I’m often thinking about the same themes: impermanence, memory, erosion, preservation, and the emotional residue left behind by time.

Architecture gives me a language to narrate these ideas.

At the same time, I never want Nvll + Void to become overly restricted by a single visual framework. I think a lot about world building when developing collections, creating atmospheres, emotional landscapes, and visual narratives that feel cohesive but I also try to leave enough openness for experimentation and evolution. I don’t want the work to become trapped within rigid parameters or reduced to a single aesthetic reference point.

HINGE RING DETAIL

Brutalism is an influence, not a rulebook.

Sometimes that influence appears directly through structural forms, industrial silhouettes, or raw textures. Other times it emerges more subtly through mood, materiality, or the emotional atmosphere surrounding a collection. I’m less interested in recreating architecture literally and more interested in translating the feelings architecture can evoke. Feelings around weight, tension, isolation, endurance, nostalgia, decay.

Jewelry has the ability to function almost like a fragment of a larger imagined environment. A small wearable object can suggest an entire world, history, or structure beyond itself. That idea continues to fascinate me.

For me, Brutalist architecture represents honesty. Materials are allowed to appear as they are. Age is visible. Damage becomes part of the story rather than something to hide. I approach jewelry in much the same way.

I want the pieces I create to feel lived in, emotionally charged, and capable of carrying traces of time with them.