This LA-based furniture designer finds a rhythm in music and making

For LA designer Zachary Nestel-Patt, founder of Ah Um Design Studio, his path into the universe of furniture design has been somewhat circuitous. ‘For the first 35 years of my life, my main passion and goal was in music,’ he tells Wallpaper*. ‘I studied jazz and classical bass and spent the bulk of my life pursuing that as a career.

It wasn't until I moved to LA and got a part time job sanding cremation urns that I started doing woodworking.’ He continued working in wood shops to fund his passion for music, but it wasn’t long before things shifted.

Ah Um Design Studio: Zachary Nestel-Patt's accidental design path

Even in those early years, woodworking was simply a means of supporting his music. But gradually, he began to find another kind of rhythm in the process of making. ‘I made some pieces for my home, some folks saw them and suggested I do a market. The reception to the work I brought to the market was truly humbling and forced me to take this project seriously.’

What began as a side pursuit soon became a calling. Nestel-Patt found himself with a full order book and enough interest in what he was doing to inspire him to build something long term which eventually became Ah Um Design Studio. The studio launched in first collection, named ‘Jura’, during NYC x Design 2024.

The 11-piece ‘Jura’ Collection is an expressive mix of materials and textures: zig-zagging wooden frames, mohair and boucle upholstery, and a distinctive use of tile, which is used to clad a chair, lamp, stool and coffee table. ‘The first idea for a piece of furniture for my house was using these incredible tiles that Willem De Morgan made featuring mythical animals,’ he says of the material choice. ‘I didn’t end up making that particular piece, but eventually settled on these tiles from Mexico that have so much life and character.

'From there, it was finding designs that highlighted the colour and organic shape of the material while still feeling honest to something I found compelling. I've really fallen in love with tile as a material. I like how it falls in between so many categories: handmade and mass produced, vintage and modern, organic and industrial.’

Based in Los Angeles, Nestel-Patt draws energy from the city’s creative community. ‘LA is a fantastic place to work as a designer,’ he says. ‘There are so many incredible people here making such beautiful things and it is continually inspiring to be around them.’

Music remains a touchstone for his design practice. ‘As I embarked on creating the collection, I definitely broadened my own understanding and definition of myself as someone who creates and makes things,’ he says. ‘Finding parallels between the process of music making and furniture design has been really rewarding and personally interesting.’

At the heart of it all, he insists, is a simple motivation: to make furniture he wants to live with. ‘I started this to have furniture that I loved in my own house and that is still what I really think about when I'm designing,’ he says. ‘There can never be enough pretty things in the world and hopefully I am adding to the global stock of pretty things.’