Kabel was approached by architecture studio Abbink X de Haas to collaborate on a building exterior that would relate to the history of the area, which is within the city's red light district but is also associated with the textile industry. "This was the area where wool and cloth were dyed in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, in fact one of Rembrandt's paintings depicts the people that worked here," the designer told Dezeen.
"With these industrially produced aluminium plates you can punch out a shape, then afterwards you can still bend the perforations, so then it can either catch light or cast a shadow," he said. "If they are bent upwards they reflect the light and bending downwards they become darker pixels."
Using this technique, the designer was able to replicate a pixellated image of a curtain by twisting over a million of the perforated hexagons using a custom-made tool.
"On the back of the panel there was either a mark or not a mark," revealed Kabel. "If there was a mark you had to bend it upwards and if not then you bent it downwards, so actually everything was completely predetermined."
Each aluminium sheet is also powder-coated to keep the facade white. "It had to be white because in Amsterdam all of the houses from the canals were always painted white to get as much light as possible into the inner courts," said Kabel.