Permanent Collection

Frame launches UR-FREAK for Ulysse Nardin and URWERK

Posted on Friday, November 28, 2025

Founded 150 years apart, luxury Swiss watchmakers Ulysse Nardin (1846) and URWERK (1997), merge timelines and launch the new UR-FREAK timepiece with this latest volley in the CG horological wars by the team at FRAME in Copenhagen.

From FRAME: “The UR-FREAK is a limited-edition reimagining of Ulysse Nardin’s Freak, considered by many to be one of the most important contemporary contributions to watchmaking.

“In the film, we set out to create a metallic womb that felt mechanical yet organic, strong yet delicate. A key challenge was achieving a balance where the womb feels engineered while still conveying a sense of softness and incubation.

“A key challenge was achieving a balance where the womb feels engineered while still conveying a sense of softness and incubation.”

“To achieve this, we used a hybrid setup combining Vellum soft-body simulations with fiber constraints to emulate subtle muscular contractions, allowing the structure to pulse and tighten as if it had its own internal physiology.

“This was paired with precise VDB meshing to maintain the metallic surfaces’ sharpness and integrity. The VDB workflow also enabled us to sculpt dynamic holes within the tendrils, allowing them to organically open and close as if driven by liquid-like internal pressure, adding a crucial sense of life to the environment.

“This idea carried through to the womb’s retraction, where the chamber pulled back in a motion that felt simultaneously mechanical and organic — an unpredictable retraction that ultimately revealed the finished watch.”