Moving across ideas,materials and computation.
Bubaki is an experimental design studio and creative consultancy based in County Clare, Ireland. We work across interaction, material research and computation, helping organisations, artists and commissioners imagine bold futures, navigate uncharted challenges, and bring physical experiences into the world.
Making Spirits Bright
An illuminated riverside instrument where footsteps create light and bell melodies across Limerick's quayside.
What we do
We work across three interconnected areas to shape an initial vision, explore materials, or build the final experience:
Ideation & Advisory
Exploring what could be before committing to a solution.
Concept development, creative direction, design futures, and feasibility studies for unchartered projects.
Interaction & Public Space
Designing communal encounters where sound, light and physical space answer people.
Interactive installations, participatory art, sound environments, civic projects.
Materials & Computation
Working freely between physical substances, physical craft and code.
Computational design, ceramics, 3D-printed textiles, bio-pastes, custom digital tools.
Selected work
All work
The Listening Tree
Acoustic contact transducers turn the bark of a living tree into an intimate listening surface.
Fabby the FabLab Robot
A cooperative physical repair game where visitors use ropes and an oversized screwdriver to help a robot.
8 Years
Melting ice lanterns slowly release water drops that trigger live sound, light, and vocal composition.
From the research
All research
Scripted Ceramic Forms
Algorithmic paths written in Python guide clay extrusion into coiled and rippled vessels.
Laser-Drawn Glazes
Using a precision laser as a drawing tool, layering line work and colour between firings.
Extrudable Bio-Pastes
Formulating extrudable paste mixtures from seaweed, eggshell powder, and timber sawdust.
How we think
The idea leads the medium
We are not bound to a single material or machine. The feeling, the space and what people experience determine how something should be made.
Comfortable with the unknown
The most interesting work starts without an obvious answer. We treat uncertainty as a space for structured inquiry, fast prototyping and discovery.
Thinking through making
We learn by testing directly in the physical world. Material experiments, sound mockups and working code test ideas better than speculative renders.
Technology in service of life
Technology should step quietly into the background. What matters is the sound, the texture, and the connection people share in the room.
Have an ambitious project, an early idea, or a question to explore?
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