Causeway Coast to Dubai: NI designer debuts sand-cast chess set

It’s set to be exhibited as part of Dubai Design Week

A NI architect is set to showcase his limited edition chess set inspired by the Causeway Coast.

Co Antrim man Rory Noble-Turner, who is also an interior and product designer, will have his Dune Chess Set exhibited in a luxury gallery as part of Dubai Design Week from November 4 to 9.

It’s set to be shown to an international audience after over two years of design and prototyping.

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The chess set is described as a “sculptural showpiece crafted from sintered ceramic sand, and inspired by the windswept ripples and sweeping silhouettes of beaches” along the Causeway coastline.

Rory said: “I wanted to design a chess set whereby rival pieces were differentiated by texture rather than colour; in order to create a unique tactile playing experience whereby each lift of the piece becomes an act of connection between player and landscape, motion and sensation.”He added: “Having grown up just outside Carrickfergus, I’ve long admired the sweeping shorelines and silken sands of the Causeway Coast.

“As a child, these beaches were a playground. When cousins came over from England, our parents would bring us here to run wild across the dunes, our laughter lost to the wind.

“As an adult – and now a designer – these same sea-soaked shores invite a quieter kind of play: one of observation, reflection, and imagination. I trace the shifting terrain underfoot, where wind and tide shape the sand into patterns of calm and conflict.“In one moment, it lies smooth and serene; in the next, it ripples into resistance. It feels almost alive, as though the beach is in dialogue with itself, caught between harmony and tension, order and chaos.“In that quiet conflict, between smooth and rippled, stillness and movement, I begin to see a game unfolding. A game shaped in Sand.”

The designer says he hopes that this project is the beginning of a long-term, unfolding body of work “that attempts to distil Northern Ireland’s rich mythical and geological landscape into refined contemporary design”.From November 28 to 30, Rory will be debuting his follow-up Dune Tableware Collection in a dedicated collective exhibition ‘Code & Craft’ in Covent Garden, London.

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