David Evans and Ashley May are co-directors of Studio17 Design and founders of NODE Audio Research. Collaborating for nearly 20 years, they established Studio17 in London before relocating to Cambridge in 2013. Their consultancy has developed products for brands including Joseph Joseph, Fiskars and AccuSim. Driven by a desire to create their own products, they launched NODE Audio Research in 2017, combining industrial design, engineering, and additive manufacturing to challenge conventional audio manufacturing.
This talk shares how additive manufacturing enabled a design consultancy to create award-winning loudspeakers. By treating 3D printing as a starting point – not just a prototyping tool – we developed patented acoustic technologies, overcame manufacturing challenges, and built scalable products that challenge traditional assumptions about how loudspeakers are designed and made.
This talk explores how additive manufacturing transformed our journey from consultancy to audio product manufacturer. After years designing products for brands like Joseph Joseph and Fiskars through Studio17 Design, daily access to advanced 3D printing prompted a question: what if products were designed specifically for additive manufacturing? This led to the creation of NODE Audio Research and the development of patented loudspeakers with geometries impossible to manufacture conventionally. We’ll share how helical acoustic pathways, modified gyroid internal structures, and scalable production using accessible tools and 3D printers – enabled performance breakthroughs and new manufacturing models. More broadly, this story demonstrates how additive manufacturing can shift from a prototyping tool to a foundation for innovation, allowing designers to rethink product architecture, unlock new performance, and build viable, production-ready technologies.