GOOGLE LABS × VOJTEK MORSZTYN STUDIO
SURFACE
PARTNER
Google Labs
PLATFORM
Google Flow
STUDIO ROLE
Tool concept and build
ACCESS
Public, remixable
YEAR
2006
A material lab and staging tool built inside Google Flow, in collaboration with Google Labs.
Surface takes a material from a written description to a high-fidelity finish, then stages it in a lit interior at the scale it would be specified. It is public, free to use with a Flow account and open for anyone to remix.
01 / The question
Can a material be judged in the room before a single sample is ordered?
On high-end projects, finishes are usually chosen early, from swatches and reference images. Neither shows how a material behaves under the light of a specific room or next to the surfaces around it. For developers and operators with large investments behind a project, a wrong material call is expensive to undo. Surface was built so the studio could see the answer first.
02 / Workflow
HOW IT WORKS IN THE STUDIO
STAGE 01
Describe
The designer describes the material in plain language. Texture, tone, gloss and how it should read under raking light all go into the description.
STAGE 02
Generate
Surface returns a custom material at high fidelity, detailed enough to judge the glaze and the shadow between tiles. Nothing is pulled from a catalogue.
STAGE 03
Stage
The material is placed on the floor, wall or ceiling of a lit interior. Combinations can be tested side by side, so the studio sees how materials work together across a space.
STAGE 04
Decide
The client reviews each finish in the room it was made for, at the scale it will be specified, before any order is placed.
03 / In a studio project
GOLF CLUB, ASIA
The studio first used Surface on a golf club project in Asia, and it changed the material decision. The team tested finishes there were no physical samples for and saw how each one would sit in the space before anything was ordered.
02 / Workflow
SURFACE IN MOTION
A walkthrough of Surface inside Flow, from a written description to a staged room.
05 / Lab notes
WHAT HELD UP
WORKED IN PRACTICE
01
Material development moved earlier in the process. Testing a finish now costs so little that it sits alongside massing, and some rooms have been shaped by their surfaces.
02
Client conversations changed. Seeing a material in the room, clients ask how it meets the floor or what it does in evening light.
WHERE IT GOES NEXT?
01
Flow keeps the authorship chain on every remix, so each new version of Surface carries the studio's method into other practices.
02
The workflow applies wherever a finish is chosen before it can be seen, including fashion, 3D visualisation and brand work.
“I built a tool that changed how we make material decisions on
high-end projects. Surface lets you generate custom materials
and test them inside a real interior scene before a single sample is ordered.”