Curiosity, followed into the real world.
Ionis was founded by Robert Chan, an industrial designer and materials-focused engineer whose work has moved between art, architecture, product design, manufacturing and research. His education spans fine art, industrial design and materials science, including furniture and metallurgy at the Royal College of Art and graduate study in materials science and engineering at MIT. Earlier research work included the Georgia Tech Research Institute, UCLA Design Media Arts and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Research with somewhere to go.
Ionis approaches research as a means of understanding and making. The emphasis is on useful knowledge: understanding materials, structures, processes and systems deeply enough to apply that understanding in the world. The result is a practice that can move comfortably between a research question, a design problem and the demands of industrial production.