To celebrate the launch of its latest collection, ‘Twisted Flower', at Milan Design Week, Kvadrat pays homage to one of textile design's unsung heroes, Frans Dijkmeijer, a Dutch-born artist whose technical prowess combined warp and weft into increasingly imaginative structural compositions. A two-part event will encompass an immersive, multidisciplinary exhibition at Triennale Milano, curated by Marco Sammicheli, and an installation at Kvadrat's Corso Monforte showroom, led by colour expert Giulio Ridolfo and designed by Binocle.

Frans Dijkmeijer: a life in textiles

Sammicheli describes Dikjmeijer's work as ‘textile tectonics', as each pattern he created was driven by structure and mathematical thinking, composition and variation. The multiple possible combinations of weft and warp are what interested him most; it's likely that he was colour blind, says Sammicheli, hence his lack of interest in colour, and most of his woven samples are based on a very simplistic palette of contrasting yarns in white, blue and black.

Dijkmeijer started his career in the 1950s, working for six decades for some of the most renowned textile brands, including Kendix, Artex and De Ploeg. ‘I think of him as a scientist, because he worked by unfolding the possibilities inside a single idea,' says Stine Find Osther, Kvadrat's vice president of design.

Among her fondest memories of the company's collaboration with the designer (which continued until his death in 2011) is the day he would send samples of his work to the Ebeltoft HQ for the weavers to replicate and develop them into commercial textiles. ‘They were small, plain white envelopes, filled with all of these tiny, wildly complex and fascinating weaving samples. Before even opening them, we just knew that we would find beauty.' Find Osther explains how he would start his work as an idea on the loom, and then go on to create dozens (sometimes hundreds) of non-identical repeats exploring the same idea.

Dijkmeijer began collaborating with Kvadrat in 1992, but his textiles didn't have commercial success until 2004, which coincided with Giulio Ridolfo also starting to work with the company. Ridolfo came from a fashion background (he has a degree in fashion design from Milan's Domus Academy) and had designed and produced fabrics for brands such as Vitra and Moroso, one of Kvadrat's long-term collaborators, through which he connected with CEO Anders Byriel.

Meeting Dijkmeijer marked the beginning of Ridolfo's collaboration with Kvadrat and of him becoming one of the design world's most respected colourists. The first textile collaboration between Ridolfo and Dijkmeijer was ‘Steelcut', which is still regarded as one of Kvadrat's masterpieces. Featuring a surface that resembles small raised pyramids, its intricate construction is balanced by a simple visual expression, amplified by Ridolfo's interpretation, which enhanced its aesthetic intensity.

Through their collaboration, the colour maestro connected with Dijkmeijer on a deeper level than just practical and professional. Dijkmeijer had a strong passion for botany, for example: it wasn't an element that ever entered his work, but Ridolfo was able to introduce that shared enthusiasm for nature's light and hues into their textiles, and so make them accessible to the wider public. ‘I didn't want to be a shock to his work, but a polite intervention,' says Ridolfo. ‘I work like a restorer, bringing light back to the textile.' Speaking different languages – that of weaving and colours – made the collaboration meaningful in a way that might not have occurred had they shared more of their professional tools. ‘Giulio was able to make a harmony out of Dijkmeijer's work, like a musical arrangement of variations that made his textiles speak,' says Sammicheli.

One of the most fascinating facets of Dijkmeijer's personality was his passion for collecting. His chateau in Cestayrols, France, is like a cabinet of curiosities, filled with eclectic assemblages of his objects. He travelled the world in search of inspiration, and brought back the things he found, something that is also true of Ridolfo – Sammicheli likens them both to pilgrims in that respect. ‘Dijkmeijer's collecting was an incredibly accessible, human gesture,' says the curator. Scattered in neat displays across the chateau are Moroccan ceramics, textiles from Africa, toys, kites, shells, postcards, religious icons, woven baskets and lace samples. ‘They give us a pretty good idea of how he fed his imagination.'

A Milanese tribute to Frans Dijkmeijer's legacy

After his death, Dijkmeijer's wife Marianne drove his archives to Kvadrat's HQ, where they have remained ever since (‘I think they will forever be a source of inspiration for us,' notes Find Osther).

For the first time, a sample of this inspirational body of work is available for the public to discover through the Triennale exhibition. Titled ‘Frans Dijkmeijer: The Silent Pioneer', the exhibition will be the first time his work is presented to the public. Despite having been at the forefront of textile production for the best part of the 20th century and until his death, he is, in fact, barely known outside of textile circles. ‘The care for remembering and attributing value to all those who contribute to a project is, alas, a recent practice,' observes Sammicheli, whose curatorial practice has always veered towards the holistic. ‘The exhibition is born from the company's wish to recognise his role not only in the history of Kvadrat, but in a wider context.'

The display, conceived by Jacob Manz, senior manager of spatial design at Kvadrat, is based on a series of cardboard displays that encourage discovery, showing hundreds of woven squares from Dijkmeijer's experiments alongside objects from his collection.

To bring to life the plethora of influences at the core of this story, Sammicheli commissioned three contemporary artists working in different media to create new work for the exhibition. The interventions by algorithmic musician Renick Bell, visual artist Valentina Furian, and designer Francesco Tosini combine electronic music composition, computer graphics, digital animation and video art to bring to life themes that were central to Dijkmeijer's life and practice, such as repetition, pattern and botany.

Meanwhile, the Kvadrat showroom will be dedicated to the launch of ‘Twisted Flower', based on a Dijkmeijer weave with a chromatic concept by Ridolfo inspired by the gesture of gently twisting a blossom between two fingers. This reference results in a weave done with a two-tone yarn that is twisted to create a dynamic, unexpected rhythm on the material's surface. Ridolfo's ‘textile bouquet' is based on hues that merge neutrals and botanicals, ranging from base shades to vivid tones such as Ceanothus blue and Gossypium yellow. The showroom concept is based on a series of canopies imagined like ‘gentle shelters', where visitors are invited to sit and contemplate the material and colour.

‘I always say Frans was a Renaissance man,' says Ridolfo. ‘Through his work, he has been able to bring extreme innovation to extremely traditional looms. He worked like an explorer, traversing unknown fields, knowing he would always arrive at something that would represent him.'

On show from 20-26 April, ‘Frans Dijkmeijer: The Silent Pioneer' at Triennale Milano, Viale Emilio Alemagna 6, In Rainbows by Giulio Ridolfo' at the Kvadrat showroom, Corso Monforte 15

‘I don’t understand why our world, which is so controlled by human decisions, has evolved to such muted colours in daily life,’ laments the fashion designer Raf Simons, sunk into a fire-engine-red Jean Royère armchair in the front room of his vast, Liberty-style villa in Milan. Wearing, perhaps incongruously considering the topic of conversation, his monochrome uniform of a black sweatshirt and stiff, black jeans.

He’s speaking with Wallpaper* on the occasion of his latest launch with Danish textile brand Kvadrat, the ‘Shaker System’ collection for children, inspired by the modular storage rails commonly found in Shaker households. As well as two new textiles, ‘Ria 2’ and ‘Saxion’.

Shaker systems for kids

When we speak, Simons is a few days out from presenting the S/S 2026 collection for Prada, which he co-designs with the brand’s founder, Miuccia Prada. The pulse of fashion – fast-paced, ephemeral, high-stakes – feel worlds away from the quiet Protestant sect that inspired the Shaker storage system, which allows you to tidily attach objects to a fixed bar that runs the perimeter of the room.

'Normally, when you buy objects for your home, you put them on a shelf like a vase. But for things like a blanket, you either have to drape it over a sofa or fold it away in a closet,' he says. 'I always thought, if you like something, why not keep it exposed?'

The new edition, designed on a smaller scale for children, is the natural extension of that thinking. Simons has also created a range of new products that can be stored along the rail: a soft bag, a velvet teddy bear, a cushion, a wool jacquard blanket, and a hooded towel.

Raf Simons on colour

Today, sitting in his Milan living room, the topic he really wants to talk about – and what informs much of his work with Kvadrat – is colour. Or rather, the lack of it in our daily lives. 'When you think about objects we use all the time, like mobile phones – they’re always grey or black. It’s not that I dislike those colours, but I wonder why interior palettes are so often just neutral.'

His longstanding collaboration with the textile brand, he says, is a way of introducing vibrancy and expressive colour back into our domestic habitats. 'From day one, I said, if we do this, it will very much be about colour,' he says of the partnership.

He points to the ‘Ria 2’ fabric, a pointillist-inspired wool viscose that follows the original ‘Ria’, which he is launching this month in several completely new palettes: cobalt blue, black and aubergine; wisteria pink, hunter green and powder white. Simons describes the new tones as being inspired by the natural world.

'I was observing nature to design textiles,' he explains of his creative process. 'I’ve always been fascinated by those colours. I spend hours observing flowers, questioning: why is this yellow so pleasing? Why does this red feel strong? One colour is never just one colour. Often, it’s not even the colour itself, but the pigment’s interaction with other colours that attracts me. That’s how a lot of my early fabric designs began.'

October also sees the introduction of ‘Saxion’, which he describes as a gentler, warmer spin on the best-selling ‘Vidar’ boucle in colourations of ultramarine, rhodonite pink and sunflower yellow.

Simons also hints at future projects, including new textiles inspired by the work of the Vienna Successionists and bold prints of the 1970s. 'An interest of mine is fabric design with strong graphic impact,' he says. 'Design often comes from another world; you rarely invent something completely new.'

Kvadrat/Raf Simons kids collection will launch 9 October 2025 on kvadratrafsimons.com and selected stores: Barney’s New York Japan, The Broken Arm Paris, The Hyundai in Seoul and Overflow in Beijing.

‘With “Technicolour” we believe we have found our Holy Grail product,’ said Anders Byriel CEO of Danish textile company, Kvadrat. This statement came from inside Wooltex, a discreet textile mill located in Huddersfield in the north of England, also providing us with shelter from the unpredictable summer showers. It is the somewhat guaranteed rainfall that makes England a great location for textile mills, a key part of the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s. The moisture, I am told, lends itself to the manufacture of a very soft fabric.

It is in this mill where Kvadrat’s latest collaboration with designer Peter Saville – building on a 2021 project of the same name that comprised an upholstery textile and curtains – is manufactured. The new ‘Technicolour’ collection, an upholstery textile available in 30 colourways, continues the celebration of British heritage, wool, and local craftsmanship – and contains no manmade fibres.

Kvadrat and Peter Saville’s new ‘Technicolour’

The idea behind the latest collaboration was rather simple, according to Saville. Staying at a childhood friend’s farm in north Wales in the early 2000s allowed him a moment of retrospection during which he noticed the sheep scurry across the fields in a rainbow-hued flurry. The spray-painted markings on their coats, an almost hieroglyphic code between farmers, caught Saville’s eye.

‘I wondered how a textile would look if these random filaments of colour ended up in production,’ he told Wallpaper*. ‘I wanted to add more charisma and excitement around Kvadrat. I loved the idea of the juxtaposition between these urban graffiti-like markings against the rural backdrop of the countryside.

‘This idea trickled down into “How would these colours look on a sofa”?’ Initially, Saville imagined an off-white sofa with painterly dashes on it. The final result of the contemporary collection was a pleasant surprise. ‘The sheep are pretty pop, they have a lot of graffiti going on, they're very cool. It is genius, actually.’

The textile was made in a new yarn-spinning facility at Wooltex (which is co-owned by Kvadrat). Ten base colours, from which the full array of 30 colourways derives, include five bold hues used for livestock-marking: orange, blue, green, yellow and magenta – with a pleasing link to some of the colours used in printing, notes Saville. These are accompanied by five neutrals: black, brown, a light and a dark beige, and undyed wool, a friendly ode to the sheep's naturally coat. The colours can be mixed and matched to create a vibrant weave.

‘There are a few places that make you reflect on how far you’ve come, and for me Wales allows me to do that. I used to play there as a ten-year-old and suddenly I'm 50. And it made me think, “Wow, life is really weird”,’ said the co-founder of Factory Records. ‘Sometimes you have to go away to realise what you've got. North Wales and Snowdonia, at least geographically, are really amazing, although when I was younger I did think it was quite limited, whereas Malibu is horrible.’

Saville, who co-founded Factory Records in 1978 and is best known for the record sleeves he created for Joy Division and New Order between 1979 and 1993, said he would love to have a sofa made with the new textiles, and a 'Technicolour' suit is definitely on the cards.

kvadrat.dk

As a teenager in the small town of Neerpelt in Belgium, close to the Dutch border, fashion designer Raf Simons discovered the work of seminal graphic designer Peter Saville in his local record shop – and with it, a portal to another world. ‘I come from a village of 6,000 people, so forget about Berlin, London, New York – what are you talking about?’ he said in 2013. ‘So I picked up things because of the imagery. We have to think back in time – no computers, no mobiles, no nothing – it was pure isolation in a way.’

These images included the cover art for Joy Division and New Order, alongside the rest of the Factory Records roster. It would prove formative. Not only did Simons – who founded his eponymous label in 1995 before stints at Jil Sander, Dior, Calvin Klein and Prada, where he is currently co-creative director – draw inspiration from Saville’s visual language, which balances an aesthetic discipline with the pulsating energy of British subculture, but he would also end up collaborating with the Manchester-born designer numerous times across his career.

Kvadrat’s Technicolour Fleck Tote Bag, by Raf Simons and Peter Saville

This included Simons’ A/W 2003 collection, which featured Saville’s Factory Records sleeves – a motif repeated in his S/S 2018 show, presented in New York’s Chinatown – while during his tenure at Calvin Klein he enlisted Saville to re-design the American brand’s logo prior to his first runway show in 2017.

A new project from Kvadrat brings Simons and Saville together once again with a tote bag which draws on each of their longtime connections with the Danish textile house: Simons has worked with Kvadrat since 2014, including his ‘Shaker System’ of functional home accessories, which launched in 2022 (‘utility, function and materiality,’ Simons told Wallpaper* of the collection’s design philosophy at the time).

Saville has been working with Kvadrat since 2006, advising on its visual identity, as well as designing the ‘Technicolour’ fabric range and designing Kvadrat’s London showroom with architect David Adjaye, among other projects (he was also responsible for introducing Simons to the company). ‘They work at very different tempo: graphic design is very high-speed, fashion is pretty high-speed, pop culture in general is high-speed. What Kvadrat do is slower, but with depth,’ Saville told Wallpaper* of the brand in 2022.

The tote bag itself takes its shape and design from the signature Kvadrat/Raf Simons Tote Bag – perhaps Simons’ best-known creation for the house – while the fabric is chosen from Saville’s ‘Techicolour’ range. The exact material is ‘Techicolour Fleck’, a wool ‘rural grafitti’ textile, available here in 0190 black and 0150 grey. The bag also features a woven label featuring the fabric and colour number, ‘a clean graphic gesture and subtle reference to his iconic work for Factory Records,’ say Kvadrat.

‘Peter and I have had so much understanding, respect and love for each other over so many years and we are both strongly connected with Kvadrat. In a way the bag represents those relationships,’ says Simons. ‘We both believe strongly in something individually but we are also interested in others’ creative work and how things kind of click in a creative world. With the tote bag, it is not literally that we did this thing together, but it’s how things click.

‘Like the word interzone, I have been obsessed with that word forever,’ he continues. ‘For me, it’s not about crossing over music and fashion and art, it’s more this undefined unclear area between the zones, as the word says.’

‘The significant term to mention in any kind of understanding of my work is interzone,’ adds Saville. ‘The overlapping space between design, art, fashion, music, cinema, photography, architecture, interior... I was never specifically interested in graphics or typography; I was interested in how two-dimensional culture could reflect the mood of the moment – the feeling of the now.’

The limited-edition tote bag is available at shopkvadrat.com and in selected stores.

shopkvadrat.com

Reflect on a year of trailblazing design with a look back at the top ten design stories of 2024 – as chosen by you, the readers. Wallpaper* magazine's most-read design stories of the year point to exciting firsts, like David Lynch’s debut installation at Salone del Mobile, and Patricia Urquiola and Kvadrat’s upholstery textile made from 100 per cent ocean-bound plastic. There are also collaborative triumphs, such as Rimowa and La Marzocco’s new espresso machine; and the celebration of a design classic, the Rubik's Cube.

Top 10 design stories of 2024

Patricia Urquiola and Kvadrat's sustainable upholstery

Named Best Recycled Material at the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2024, Patricia Urquiola’s Sport textile for Kvadrat was a collaboration with Swiss company #tide and is the world’s first upholstery textile made of 100 per cent ocean-bound plastic.

The post-consumer plastic used is collected within 10km of the coastline of Thailand, as part of #tide’s commitment to prevent the materials from reaching the oceans.

The resulting sportswear-inspired fabric features subtle tactile patterns enriching the surface and a colour palette defined by vibrant shades of purple, green and blue, as well as a series of neutrals.

Writer: Rosa Bertoli

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Design Dynasties: the powerhouse families of Italian furnishing

Wallpaper* met with eight Italian families who, generation after generation, have set the standards of furniture design across the globe. These 'Design Dynasties' generously shared the personal stories and experiences behind their success with our writer Laura May Todd. They spoke of their longest-serving pieces and the dynamics that have emerged from being both a family and a business. Through her photographs, Bea de Giacomo captures glimpses of their familial settings and their most cherished designs.

Writer Laura May Todd

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A new era for Iittala

‘Imperfect’, ‘disruptive’ and ‘unpredictable’ are not words often associated with Finnish design, least of all with Iittala, one of its founding fathers. But new creative director Janni Vepsäläinen is not afraid to use all three and apply them to the 143-year-old company. Iittala now hails a new era, led by Vepsäläinen, and marked by a new logo and collections that pay homage to Aino and Alvar Aalto's heritage.

During Stockholm Furniture Fair 2024, Vepsäläinen unveiled her first collection, within a former nuclear reactor in the city. It wasn't your average debut; London-based composer and artist Damsel Elysium performed a piece using glass ‘instruments’, ranging from 2m-long horns to bells and bottles, all hand-blown in the Iittala factory near Helsinki.

Writer: Emma O'Kelly

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Ikea and Raw Color's vibrant crafts

‘Tesammans’ means 'together' or 'in company' in English. It is also the name of the latest collaboration between Ikea and Raw Color, a studio based in Eindhoven and founded by Christoph Brach and Daniera ter Haar. The collection is full of playful designs, vibrant textures and an eye-catching colour palette.

Ikea’s creative brief to the pair was direct yet liberating – reveal the potential of the spectrum. ‘Raw Color possesses a distinctive grasp of colour’s potency, its emotional impact, and its role in shaping our living environments,’ Maria O'Brian, creative Leader at Ikea of Sweden told us. ‘We aim for this collection to spark creativity and empower individuals to craft vibrant and cheerful living spaces in their daily routines.’

Writer: Yoko Choy

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David Lynch presents 'A Thinking Room' at Salone del Mobile

Visitors to Salone del Mobile 2024 were offered a new cinematic experience. The revered director David Lynch – known for cult films like Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire and Wild at Heart – designed an exhibition entitled 'Interiors by David Lynch. A Thinking Room' on the grounds of the Rho Fiera. The exhibition marked a new kind of venture for the Oscar-winning auteur, but according to its curator, Antonio Monda, former artistic director of the Rome Film Festival, it came not totally out of the blue.

'A few years earlier I presented Lynch the lifetime achievement award at the Rome Film Festival, and when I visited him in Los Angeles I found him polishing a desk. I asked him, what are you doing? And he told me he designs furniture now,' recounts Monda. 'So when the Salone del Mobile invited me to commission a filmmaker for this special event, I knew he was the real deal.'

Writer Laura May Todd

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Rimowa and La Marzocco’s compact espresso machine

Rimowa, globally known for its premium luggage, united with La Marzocco, an expert in espresso machinery, to present a carefully crafted Linea Mini espresso machine celebrating German and Italian design and engineering.

Merging Rimowa's signature grooved aluminium with La Marzocco’s engineering, the Linea Mini is a compact design accessorised with bespoke compartments, and packs an artistic punch with your morning shot of espresso.

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Ido Yoshimoto's sculptural pieces

We visited sculptor Ido Yoshimoto at his California studio, where he spoke about his work with wood, from his beginning as an arborist to his sculptures and furniture made with local reclaimed material – whether salvaged cedar, walnut or cypress, or old-growth redwood downed by disaster.

For Yoshimoto, making art is a way to figure out how things work, and how to fix what is broken. Sometimes it’s just repairing an old pepper grinder or cleaning a fish. But it’s also about living as nature, not with nature, an expression of curiosity and connection. Making art makes the world feel less mysterious because it’s tinkering in its highest form.

Writer: Shonquis Moreno

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50 years of the Rubik’s Cube

Hidden away in Budapest’s Buda Hills stands Hungarian inventor Ernő Rubik’s minimalist five-storey abode. Adorned with multiple scenic terraces, it stars an elevator that conveniently glides between levels and furniture of Rubik’s own design. 'Yes, I made other things, too,' he told Wallpaper* on a tour through his comfortable rooms, 'but people only want to talk about the cube.’

The cube, of course, is the Rubik’s Cube, the bestselling 3D combination puzzle that the inventor dreamed up back in 1974. Twisting and turning into some 43 quintillion permutations, the six-sided cube is clad in vibrantly tinted squares that beckon enthusiastic problem solvers.

Fifty years after its birth, we spoke with Rubik about the history of a design classic.

Writer Alia Akkam

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Air Play Moon Safari

While the ‘Air Play Moon Safari’ tour was in full swing across Europe, the USA and Mexico during 2024 (they're playing 2025 dates too), we explored the design of the French band's White Box stage. They played their intimate, retro-futurist classic album, in full, from a five-sided, white-walled, 21:9 aspect-ratio letterbox that faced its voyeuristic audiences like Hitchcock’s Rear Window property as reimagined by Californian modernists. 'It could be a home, it could be our world, our head… our architectural concept,' they said of the project.

Writer Simon Mills

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Designing the Olympics

How do you begin to design the Olympics? On the eve of this year's event, we pulled up a pew with Joachim Roncin, the director of design for Paris 2024, to learn more about gender-free mascots with a genital likeness and medals made from the Eiffel Tower.

This had been a five-year assignment with a sprawling, impossibly broad scope, a hard deadline, a global audience and – ideally – a positive legacy that will span generations of future citizens. The heat was real.

Writer Hugo Macdonald

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‘A metallic, reflective element always adds drama and glamour to the table scene,’ says Wallpaper* entertaining director Melina Keays. ‘Just one piece lifts everything.’ Take your pick from these shining tableware examples – from a silver-plated coffee pot to cute stainless-steel cups – as selected by interiors editor Olly Mason (arbiter of taste at the Wallpaper* gleam team).

Coffee is served with a bold dose of Bauhaus-inspired allure thanks to these stainless steel cups and saucers, adorned only by assertive geometric handles. Part of the new ‘SR’ collection by Copenhagen-based designer Louise Roe Andersen and her daughter Sophia Roe, they are available online from the family firm, louise-roe.com.

Ably demonstrating that tablescaping is a question of balance is this ‘Interconnect’ candleholder by Colin King. The American interior stylist and product designer studied dance before changing paths, and it shows in this perfectly poised design, described simply as ‘a sphere, an angle and a line’. Available in two sizes and various finishes from audocph.com.

Cutlery rarely prompts a double-take. These pieces, designed by Natalia Criado and handcrafted in Italy from plated brass, will give your guests a conversation starter; available from nataliacriado.com and artemest.com. Pair with a silver-plated plate from christofle.com and reflect on your impeccable table-setting skills.

Resembling a 3D geometry puzzle more than a bowl, this stainless steel centrepiece has plenty of edge(s) and an architectural appeal. It is formed from five triangular segments and is supported by a star-shaped, five-piece, hand-welded base. Available from normanncopenhagen.com and nordicnest.com.

A pair of dinky lava-stone spheres on either side of this silver-plated brass plate, artisan-made in Italy, are an unexpectedly cute detail, and a welcome shot of earthy tactility – a bit of rough to go with your smooth. Available from nataliacriado.com and artemest.com.

Not a retro-futuristic telecom tower, but a clear signal that coffee is ready to be served, the ‘Gigogne’ coffee pot unstacks into three deliciously modernist pieces: a sugar bowl, a milk jug, and the coffee pot itself. Designed in 1926 by Danish silversmith Christian Fjerdingstad for Christofle, the ‘Gigogne’ has been reissued and is available from christofle.com and netaporter.com.

For espresso lovers, go Italian with Alessi, the country’s shining star of kitchenware. The new ‘Menhir’ espresso maker by Michael Anastassiades, its form echoing the eponymous upright standing stones, has an air of strength and simplicity – like good coffee. Available in three-cup and six-cup sizes, from selfridges.com and alessi.com. Don't forget Italian ice cream for dessert while coffee's brewing – double your shine factor with Jasper Morrison's ‘JM16’ bowl, also from alessi.com.

Forget mundane melamine. This stainless steel tray brings a subtly deco refinement to proceedings, whether you're serving up afternoon tea or postprandial liqueurs. Find it at bettinaceramica.com.

Last but not least, silvery vases make a light-catching backdrop to a tumbling floral display, and will always offset whatever colours you've chosen. For these examples, hand-welded in polished stainless steel, we've looked again to Denmark's louise-roe.com.

May your next dinner glimmer.

For centuries, Japanese farmers repaired worn clothing using a handsewing technique known as sashiko, with textile surfaces punctuated by rain-like patterns of countless single stitches. This practice, expressing a unique beauty through utility, is the visual starting point for ‘Ame’, a contemporary textile created by Japanese designer Teruhiro Yanagihara for the Danish company Kvadrat.

‘Ame’ – meaning ‘rain’ in Japanese – is Kvadrat’s first textile-to-textile product, crafted entirely of polyester recycled from fabric waste. Its material modernity is harmonised with the poetry of its concept, with a rhythmic design reflecting a modern reimagining of sashiko through its rain-like stitching.

Ame by Teruhiro Yanagihara for Kvadrat

The textile’s in-between shades were inspired by Japan's traditional colour palette, in which deeply codified tones mirror the quietest changes of the micro-seasons. The shades are harmonised in two layers, in a modern riff on kasane no iro, the traditional art of layering kimono textiles.

‘Ame’ is the latest in a trio of textiles designed by Yanagihara for Kvadrat (following ‘Haku’ and ‘Autumn’) – all three connected through contemporary reimaginings of traditional Japanese ideas combined with the natural beauty of gently nuanced colours.

For Yanagihara, who has studios in both Kobe, southwest Japan, and Arles, southern France, an excavation of the past to create a timeless sense of beauty, combined with meticulous material research and modern craftsmanship, underpin his creations, whether it’s a chair, an interior or a scent.

This is reflected across his borderless designs – from 1616/Arita, a contemporary ceramics brand whose warm minimalism for daily life has placed a community of artisans in southern Japan firmly on the global design map; to the low-key calm of the Tokyo flagship for fashion brand Mame Kurogouchi, whose crafted minimalist interiors, softly flowing and light-filtering, echo the inside of a shell.

Another example is Vague (‘wave’ in French) – Teruhiro Yanagihara Studio’s experimental creative space, with iterations in Kobe and Arles, designed to spatially express its philosophies, with exhibitions, food research, material studies, creative residencies, pop-ups.

Here, Yanagihara talks to Wallpaper* from Vague in Kobe – a serenely expansive and art-scattered space spanning a 1938 former bank, walls cocooned in crafted expanses of tsuchikabe earthen plaster – about textiles, cooking and scenes from daily life.

In conversation with Teruhiro Yanagihara

Wallpaper*: Tell us about the new textile, ‘Ame’.

Teruhiro Yanagihara: The pattern is derived from a traditional stitching technique called sashiko. It’s not a designed pattern – it was created for everyday life. When farmers couldn’t afford to repair kimono, they would collect lots of small pieces of fabric called hagire and stitch them together. Mottainai – this is a key word. It means not wasting anything and it’s an important part of Japanese thinking. It’s about the beauty of valuing objects in daily life – which is very timeless and aligns with the sustainability innovations of Kvadrat.

W*: What was the starting point for the textile series?

TY: When I started collaborating with Kvadrat, I researched the history of textiles – and found a strong connection between European and Japanese materials. Even in terms of a kimono, a textile might come from China, then go to India and on to Europe. I became very interested in the Silk Road, how materials were transported and how everything was connected. This idea led to the first textile Haku and then Autumn. For all three textiles, we also explored Japan’s traditional colour palette.

W*: What is unique about Japan’s traditional colour palette?

TY: The colours are very subtly gradated and reflect the smallest changes in nature. In Japan, even within the four seasons, we have 36 micro-seasons. From light to dark, the colours change very gradually. These are shades taken from nature – rocks, seas, skies, fermentation processes.

W*: Can you share some examples?

TY: Even within ‘grey’ there are many variations. One colour is hai nezumi – a grey mouse colour. Another is hai sakura – the slightly grey shade of cherry blossoms when they start drying. The colour spectrum is like the moon, waxing and waning. With the Kvadrat textiles, we tried to reflect these nuances. Using textiles in a space impacts the whole atmosphere so we wanted to create a soft gradation of colours. There are many in-between colours here that are not usually in development.

W*: Spaces, scents, objects – what connects the many different things that you design?

TY: I often start by imagining a scene in daily life. The first time I visited the factory in Arita, I could instantly imagine a scene in which people were using Arita ceramics on a dining table. It was a very strong mental image – I could see the items being used in real life and then went on to make them.

W*: To what extent do you identify your designs as Japanese?

TY: Until the Kvadrat project, I always tried to design from a global perspective. I was always surprised when people outside Japan said my designs felt Japanese, for example when showing work at Milan Design Week. It wasn’t conscious for me – I thought my designs felt more European. At that point, I didn’t really want to show the Japanese-ness in my designs. But the Kvadrat project was a big turning point. I was able to fully appreciate the depths of Japanese beauty. More importantly, I realised that the traditional Japanese way of thinking is actually very global. Researching kimono, ceramics and textiles, I realised how many things that I thought were purely Japanese were connected to Europe. Everything is connected.

W*: How has this impacted your work?

TY: Now, I’m more interested in the places in-between. We’re working on projects in Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, UK, Taiwan and we’re heading to India soon. We already have two Vague spaces, in Japan and France, with studio team members also based in London, Taiwan and the Netherlands. It’s about researching all the gradients and exploring the connections.

W*: And how about Vague, where we’re sitting now?

TY: We opened Vague in Arles in 2019 and in Kobe last year, to express the philosophy of our designs. Here, our studio is on one floor, alongside an artist residency space. Another floor has a gallery, showrooms, pop-ups, a kitchen and a café. We’ve also made our own natural scent brand, inspired by nature, called Lichen, which is based here. The building is a 1930s bank and artisans used earth from Shigaraki, mixed with sand from a Shiga river and Amami oil, to craft the natural plaster on the walls. We use the same ingredients throughout the spaces, but in different formulations to connect but differentiate between them.

W*: What is the most important element of this space?

TY: The atmosphere – kukan. The air that flows between the rooms is connected. Our design is about the invisible – about feeling as well as seeing. I don’t just design objects, I always try to make a connection with the space. So I want the textiles and the furniture and the atmosphere to all be in harmony and blend into one another.

W*: Finally, what currently inspires you?

TY: It’s always about the local. Just like cooking. We always use local materials. So in India, there is cotton and you dye it with saffron – using local materials to make the end product. In China, there may be another technique to dye textiles, but typically the process has the same roots. It’s like noodles around the world – they have the same roots but change in each region, adapting to the local environment. And the different types of pasta across Italy. Design is similar. It depends on the local ingredients – but ultimately it all has the same foundation.

kvadrat.dk

Kvadrat ReThink marks the Danish textile authority's sixth exploration of design and textile in collaboration with global creatives. Unveiled at 3 Days of Design 2024, ReThink is a creatuve exploration of, sustainable approaches, curated by effrey Bernett, Anniina Koivu, Johanna Agerman Ross, Jane Withers and Njusja de Gier and featuring the work of 12 designers, both emerging and established. 

Kvadrat ReThink at 3 Days of Design 2024

The designers were invited to explore the boundaries of materials through innovative design approaches, and given carte blanche on their preferred medium, from recycled textiles, renewable or natural materials, or circular approaches. The group explored Kvadrat's vast material portfolio, while also drawing from their own communities for further material and manufacturing inspirations. 

The designers involved include Patricia Urquiola, Fernando Laposse, Buro Belén, ECAL's Christophe Guberan and Camille Blin and more, with a roster of creatives ranging from Iceland to Venezuela. Through a variety of approaches, the designers delved into their own practice while also exploring the potential of circularity and collaborating with local realities to give voice to their communities. 

Throughout the 12 projects, the designers explored experimental approaches to using textiles both for practical domestic purposes, playful concepts and more. Guberan and Blin's Augmented Curtain, for example, 'develops the potential of a curtain as an insulating material in living spaces,' through the use of a 3D weaving technology resulting in a curtain that can reduce heat loss in winter and moderate temperature gain in summer. To do this, the pair used Kvadrat's Reflect, made from recycled PET, and created lightweight curtains featuring small tubes that trap air, forming an insulating barrier between window and room.

A decidedly different direction was chosen by Urquiola, who used her Sport textile for Kvadrat ( the world's first recycled polyester upholstery textile woven from discarded plastic collected from the ocean) to create a giant octopus sculpture. The playful object 'is intended to convey a serious message about waste reassignment and environmental sustainability.'

Also on the playful end of the spectrum is Laposse's The Good Shepherd, a rocking bench inspired by the practice of herding sheep on horseback in Mexico. Using Kvadrat's wool-based textiles (a symbolic choice, the designer explains, 'as the company’s wool production depends on sustaining grassland for grazing'), Laposse's horse-like piece features a saddle in Kvadrat’sVidar 4 sitting on a blanket made of Recheck. Meanwhile, he chose Sisal for the body - a material that is recurring in the designer's oeuvre, as it is derived from agave he cultivates as part of his ongoing land and community regeneration project in Mexico.

Venezuela-born María-Elena Pombo of Fragmentario involved a Venezuelan children's home to create a series ok skateboards made of Kvadrat Really’s  (the company's versatile boards made from end-of-life textiles). 'As they created the skateboards, the kids applied a range of new skills and learned about sustainability from both a global and local perspective,' reads a note accompanying the project. 'The skateboards will be used not only for recreation but also for transport in their area. As a means of transport that doesn’t depend on petroleum, the skateboard is symbolic of the move away from ‘extractivism’.

A Tibetan yak tent, made from strips of Kvadrat’s Molly 2 wool upholstery textile, is the project proposed by Atlas's design studio co-founder Jenny Chou. Originally made from yak yarn and now a disappearing tradition, for Chou 'the nomads’ tents exemplify the core principles of reuse and regeneration.' Working with the Tibetan community for the project became an exploration of how traditional practices and customs can help develop sustainable design ideas.

New York-based studio Leong Leong's Kīpuka references the Hawaiian concept of 'oasis' or 'clearing' of the same name. An inspiration to the design and architecture duo for its resistance to surrounding environmental transformations, the concept was translated into an 'adaptable system of objects that transforms living spaces into sanctuaries for rest, play and reflection.'

'The participants responded with passion and ingenuity, drawing on diverse cultural and cross-disciplinary backgrounds,' says says Njusja de Gier, Kvadrat’s senior vice president of marketing and digital. 'ReThink captures many different approaches to sustainability through artistry, experimental education, transparency, 3D technology, assembly, structure and pure craft in which the creative process evolves through hand, heart and mind.'

Kvadrat ReThink is on view during 3 Days of Design, 12-14 June 2024

Kvadrat showroom

Klubiensvej 22

2150 Nordhavn

Copenhagen

kvadrat.dk

Based between Seattle and Brooklyn, Ladies & Gentlemen Studio’s founders Dylan Davis and Jean Lee are used to ‘embracing the best of both coasts’. This June they will be exploring new shores, hopping across the Atlantic to Denmark to make their debut at Copenhagen’s 3 Days of Design 2024, from 12-14 June.

Known for its perfectly balanced pendant lighting and mobiles, elegant installations, and a recent concept store in New York for Australian furniture brand SP01, the studio is making its first appearance in Copenhagen with its Altostratus and Veil Tapestry collections, created with textiles from renowned Danish brands Kvadrat and Sahco. 

The pieces will be on display at ‘Enter the Salon’, a group exhibition curated by Signe Hytte.

Ladies & Gentlemen lighting collections

Comprising sinuous layers of undulating textiles, the Altostratus series ‘celebrates the flow of energy through illumination of light and space’ by drawing inspiration from sunlight filtered through cloud formations. ‘A cloud’s convergence of elements gives form to the formless energy in the sky. Similarly, a lamp not only gives form to light but also illuminates the possibilities within a space. Altostratus is a reflection on the potential flow of this energy,’ explains Davis.

The studio will also expand upon its Veil Pendant collection, first launched in 2021 at Milan Design Week, with a series of limited-edition illuminated wall pieces. Featuring layered compositions of fabrics washed with light, the three unique Veil Tapestries showcase the tactile diversity of Sahco and Kvadrat textiles.

Inspired by Eastern architecture’s sensibilities of warmth and lightness, the original pieces were angular 3D light sculptures referencing Japanese shoji screens, while the new limited-edition, wall-hung models use layers and collage of textures to create a very different interplay of light and shadow.

‘We really enjoyed the collaboration with Ladies & Gentlemen,’ says Njusja de Gier, Kvadrat’s senior vice president of marketing and digital. ‘Their inquisitive approach investigating how our textiles can diffuse light resonates well with our mission to continuously push the boundaries of textile design and the way textiles can be used.’

The lighting collections will be on show at the ‘Enter the Salon’ exhibition at The Conary, a historical townhouse in the heart of Copenhagen. Other exhibitors include contemporary Japanese labels Karimoku Case and Ambientec, Porto-based studio Origin Made, and Scandinavian brands Carpe Diem Beds and August Sandgren.

‘Enter The Salon’ is at The Conary, 12-14, June 2024, 10am-6pm, Dronningens Tværgade 26, 1302 Copenhagen, Denmark

ladiesandgentlemenstudio.com
kvadrat.dk
sahco.com

Kvadrat Acoustics has helped to stage a tapestry installation – Others Will Know by Miriam Bäckströmat – at the Buffalo AKG Museum in upstate New York. The piece merges textiles and photography and is part of a year-long celebration of newly commissioned works following the museum's 2023 opening.

Wrapping around the lower lobby of the museum’s OMA-designed Jeffrey E Gundlach Building, the 36.6m installation transforms the space and enhances acoustic quality.

Swedish artist Bäckströmat creates three-dimensional experiences from two-dimensional images. Here, her process began with the choice of a colourful fabric that was originally designed for bathing suits, with a pattern reminiscent of lighthouse tower lenses. She then used 3D technology and virtual reality to transform a textile swatch into a photographic curvilinear sculpture.

With the help of a team of weavers and the Kvadrat Acoustics team – which specialises in customisable acoustic solutions for artistic and architectual projects –the piece was translated into a mesmerising wall-mounted tapestry.

Kvadrat Acoustics stretched the artwork across 11 of its Kvadrat Soft Cells Broadline panels. To allow the piece to wrap fluidly around the space’s unique angles and intersections, the team used ‘a form-finding algorithm to calculate the panels’ precise curvatures’. It also worked with OMA and Studio Miriam Bäckström to optimise the panel performance and ensure image alignment, and developed a unique installation system.

Says Bäckstrom, ‘The concept is that when entering the museum, you also enter a sculpture, giving the illusion that it is larger than the museum itself. You enter another room than expected, and that is what the acoustic experience supports as well.’

Add the Kvadrat Acoustics team, ‘It is amazing to have an artist like Miriam Bäckström choosing a Kvadrat Acoustics product to showcase her artwork; to see an art piece on Kvadrat Acoustics panels and to show our capabilities of doing custom-made solutions.’

The installation is on display throughout 2024 at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum

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Patricia Urquiola and Kvadrat have teamed up to launch the world’s first upholstery textile made entirely of recycled materials. 

Working with ocean-bound plastic waste, the Milanese designer and Danish textile authority have created Sport, in partnership with #tide, a Swiss company specialising in developing materials from ocean-bound plastic waste. The textile is made of post-consumer plastic collected within 10km from the coastline of Thailand, as part of #tide’s commitment to prevent the materials from reaching the oceans. 

Sport by Patricia Urquiola for Kvadrat

‘[With Kvadrat], we share the same philosophy that the highest standards in design and materials can be combined with important sustainable and ethical actions,’ says #tide co-founder Marc Krebs. ‘[We both] want to create a much-needed social and environmental impact that protects the oceans and supports coastal and island communities in their fight against plastic pollution out of 100 per cent ocean-bound plastic waste.’

As the name suggests, the collection is inspired by sportswear and nods to a high-tech aesthetic, with subtle tactile patterns enriching the surface and a colour palette defined by vibrant shades of purple, green and blue as well as a series of neutrals that range from greys to taupe. Each textile is defined by a two-tone contrasting composition, enhancing the design’s three dimensional effect. ‘The colours for Sport are divided into “salt and pepper” monochrome nuances, which illuminate the textile's high-tech graphic character, and solid shades which fade its texture away,’ explains Urquiola.

With Sport, Kvadrat and Urquiola affirm their commitment to innovation in design, as they constantly push the boundaries of domestic design to set the tone for future living.

kvadrat.dk

A version of this article appears in the February 2024 issue of Wallpaper* – dedicated to the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2024 – available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Add effervescence to any event with our showstopping cocktails and canapés. Take inspiration from our exquisite tablescapes and elegant glassware, and simple but sophisticated recipes, courtesy of Wallpaper* Entertaining Director Melina Keays and Interiors Editor Olly Mason. The art of entertaining starts here.

Cocktails and canapés: hosting in style

The gallery reception, with a Gibson cocktail

Gibson cocktail recipe

Serves 1

70 ml gin
15ml dry Vermouth
ice cubes
2 cocktail onions

Measure the gin and vermouth into a mixing glass. Add ice cubes and stir for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Serve with 2 cocktail onions threaded onto a cocktail stick.

Interval pick-me-ups, with an Amaretto Sour

Amaretto Sour recipe

Serves 1

60ml amaretto liqueur
30ml fresh lemon juice
dash of Angostura bitters
15ml egg white
ice cubes
maraschino cherries

Put all the ingredients apart from the ice and cherries into a cocktail shaker and shake sharply for 30 seconds. Open the shaker and add ice cubes. Replace the lid and shake again for a further 30 seconds. Strain into a cocktail glass and serve garnished with a maraschino cherry.

Candlelit concert

Tea and symphony, with coconut macaroons and madeleines

Coconut macaroons recipe

Makes 12

2 egg whites
100g caster sugar
200g desiccated coconut
1/4 tsp salt
1tsp vanilla paste
6 glacé cherries, halved
90g dark chocolate

Whisk together the egg whites and caster sugar in a large bowl for 2-3 mins until light and frothy, and the sugar has dissolved. Add the coconut, a pinch of salt and the vanilla, and stir until combined. Leave to stand for 10 mins. Preheat the oven to 170°C/fan 160°C/gas 4 and line a baking sheet with baking parchment. Scoop up generous teaspoonfuls of the mixture and roll into balls with your hands. Shape them into 12 mounds and arrange on the prepared baking sheet. Top each with half a glacé cherry. Bake for 10-12 mins until golden, then leave to cool completely on the baking sheet.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn't touch the water. Dip the bottom of each cooled macaroon into the chocolate and place on a sheet of baking parchment, chocolate-side up. Place in the fridge for 20 mins, or until set.

Madeleines recipe

Makes 12-16

2 eggs
100g caster sugar
100g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
1 lemon, juice and zest
3/4 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
100g butter, melted and cooled slightly, plus extra for greasing

Brush the madeleine tray with melted butter then shake in a little flour to coat, tapping out the excess. Whisk the eggs and sugar together in a bowl until pale and frothy. Add the remaining ingredients and whisk them in lightly, then place the batter in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes. 

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Spoon the batter into the prepared madeleine tray, place in the hot oven and bake for 10-12 minutes until they are golden and well risen in the centre. Place on a wire rack to cool.

Front row show

Cassata ice cream bombe recipe

Serves 6- 8

500ml chocolate ice cream
300ml pistachio ice cream
250ml vanilla ice cream
30g chopped dried apricots
35g chopped glace cherries
30g chopped candied orange peel
25g chopped pistachio nuts
cocoa powder to dust
1 litre pudding bowl

Take the chocolate ice cream out of the freezer to soften. Line the pudding bowl with a double layer of cling film. Spoon the chocolate ice cream into the lined bowl and spread it up the sides in a thick and even layer. Place it back in the freezer to firm for 15 minutes, then repeat the process with the pistachio ice cream. Take the vanilla ice cream out of the freezer to soften, then spoon it into a bowl and fold in the chopped fruit and nuts. Spoon this mixture into the centre of the ice cream bombe , smooth the top and replace in the freezer to firm for several hours. Dust the bombe with cocoa powder before serving. 

Private view

Box office hits, with lobster rolls

Lobster rolls recipe

Serves 6

500g cooked lobster meat
5 tbs mayonnaise
1 tbs lemon juice
1 stick of celery, diced into small pieces
1 tbs chopped fresh chives
salt and black pepper
6 brioche rolls
3 tbs butter

Chop the lobster meat into large chunks and set aside. Put the mayonnaise, lemon juice, celery and chives Ito a bowl. Add 1/4 teaspoon of salt and a good grind of black pepper and mix well. Add the lobster and fold all together until well combined. Check the seasoning. Slice the rolls lengthways halfway without cutting them completely in two. Open them up to reveal the cut sides. Melt the butter in a large frying pan and place the opened rolls cut side down to warm and toast slightly in the hot butter. Remove from the pan, spoon in the lobster mixture and serve immediately.

Grand finale

Gildas recipe

Makes 12

I jar of pitted olives
12 salted anchovies
12 pickled Guindilla chillies
cocktail sticks

Drain the olives and chillies. Take a cocktail skewer and thread a chilli first, followed by one end of an anchovy. Add an olive and then thread the other end of the anchovy onto the skewer. Serve with drinks and other appetisers.

Set build: London Art Makers. Photography assistant: Louise Oates. Interiors assistant: Archie Thomson. Fashion assistant: Kris Bergfeldt

The December 2023 Entertaining Issue of Wallpaper* is available in print from 9 November, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today!

Danish-Vietnamese artist Dahn Vo presented his new collection of Kvadrat curtains through a mesmerising installation at his Berlin apartment. Dubbed 'Trapped in Heaven', the collaboration resulted in a sculptural, calligraphic curtain made of partly recycled polyester and available in a white tone with three limited-edition pastel hues. 

'Trapped in Heaven': Kvadrat curtains by Dahn Vo

'Trapped in Heaven' is the latest offering from Kvadrat's curtains division, a luminous, multifunctional partition that combines light, words and textile. Infused with essential minimalism, the curtain design features a light jacquard woven in both single and double layers, with letters woven onto the material as pockets, offering an effect that is shimmering and mysterious. 

On the curtain is the message 'Tout ce qui t’empêche de partir, tout cela est ton ennemi' (All that prevents you from leaving, all that is your enemy), a quote that has a special meaning for the artist. For an ongoing series of artworks, he asked his father, a skilled calligrapher, to transcribe texts by French Catholic missionary to Vietnam Saint Théophane Vénard. Vo discovered the quote during a visit to the missionary's birthplace. 

Vo asked his father to replicate the quote in his calligraphic style, which was then translated onto the textile, which is made of 74% recycled polyester. Stretching over 5 metres of fabric, the quote becomes a translucent, abstract motif on the curtain that extends his work onto an everyday object.

The launch of Kvadrat Limited

Dahn Vo's design also marks the debut of Kvadrat Limited, new platform by the textile company that will offer limited edition textiles created in collaboration with globally renowned artists, with the aim of allowing people to bring a piece of art into their homes (or commercial spaces). 'For us, it is important to have a material relationship with contemporary art,' says Kvadrat CEO, Anders Byriel, introducing the initiative.

While the white curtain will be widely available, three shades (light pink, light green and beige) will be offered in limited editions. The three pale hues are described by Vo as 'an echo, or memory, of a colour,' and were inspired by a walnut tree at his summer house, with the wood, leaves and flowers inspiring the tonal variation. 

The curtains made their debut at Vo's Berlin apartment, where he used them to create a series of partitions within the space, demonstrating their potential in small and large scale applications. Sectioning off large areas of a room, the design becomes a narrative device to transform the space, while it becomes a discreet punctuation when used to screen a window or loosely divide an environment. 

The calligraphic motif becomes a shimmering decoration close to a moiré effect, almost invisible in its large-scale application and fully visible only on extended curtain applications. 

The project follows Vo's previous collaboration with Kvadrat, featuring the reimagining of Nanna Ditzel's iconic Hallingdal textile, and demonstrates Kvadrat's ability to speak the languages of art and design in the same gesture. 'We love art, it inspires ourselves and our audience, and it is great to be able to share it with our community,' says Byriel. 'This project brings objects together and helps them communicate.'

kvadrat.dk

 ‘I hope it inspires people to buy small objects with the same mind as when they buy a chair, to put it in the context of their environment,’ Raf Simons told Wallpaper* on the release of his first accessories collection with Danish textile company Kvadrat, released in August 2022.

Titled Kvadrat/Raf Simons, the collaboration drew inspiration from Shaker furniture – namely, the designer’s conception of a ‘Shaker System’, a horizontal bar based on the peg rails used by the Protestant religious group. From it hung the various pieces from the collection, which spanned cushions and throws, but also wearable objects including a cap, tote and shopping bags, and key chains. 

Kvadrat/Raf Simons Collection 2, photographed by Willy Vanderperre

Today, Wallpaper* reveals a new campaign for the next chapter of the collaboration – Kvadrat/Raf Simons Collection 2 – which sees the ‘System’ expand into an array of lifestyle accessories, namely those related to the bathroom, including bathrobes, towels, toiletry bags, slippers and clutches (the first collection was based on objects you might find in the hallway). Kvadrat says it is an ‘expanding family of lifestyle accessories that reset how we live and create beauty from order’.

The campaign itself, photographed in Antwerp – where Belgium-born Simons based his eponymous label before its closure, which was announced in November 2022 –sees the designer unite with two longtime collaborators, photographer Willy Vanderperre and stylist Olivier Rizzo. Their relationship began in the early 1990s, the trio defining the distinct aesthetic signature of Simons’ own-name label, as well as his stints as creative director at Jil Sander, Dior, Raf Simons, and most recently Prada where he is currently co-creative director with Miuccia Prada.

The various images – which will be released more widely to coincide with the beginning of the Danish design festival 3daysofdesign (7-9 June, 2023) – reflect Vanderperre’s signature poetic style, with various nude models wearing pieces from the collection or clasping them to the body. 

‘The collection consists of a unified series, a storage system and edit of accessories honouring utility, function and materiality. While living in the US, I developed a deep appreciation of Shaker culture. Its ordered homes and simple functional furniture are considered the first modern American design,’ Simons told Wallpaper* previously of the collection’s inspirations.

‘Whatever it is in terms of design, it has to serve the human being and it has to be put in the context of the environment in which people are living. We created the Shaker System to be visually appealing, but the main focus was its functionality.’

Kvadrat/Raf Simons Collection 2 will be available from Machine-A. 

www.kvadratrafsimons.com

Ronan Bouroullec says he has been drawing since his childhood in Brittany, France. ‘I grew up in the countryside, far from my friends. My brother was much younger. We had no TV. I played football alone, against a wall. Drawing became a necessity, it filled the void.’ He still feels the need to draw every day, and keeps a personal studio – a large, light-filled apartment in Paris’ 9th arrondissement – for that purpose.

On the day I visit, many years’ worth of drawings are spread out over the floor, being narrowed down to a few hundred for an upcoming museum show in Toulon. Among them sit a box of fabric samples, a new collection inspired by Bouroullec’s drawings, freshly arrived from Denmark. Their producer, textile company Kvadrat (with whom he and his brother Erwan have collaborated since 2005), is presenting the fabrics at Salone del Mobile 2023 this spring.

It was thanks to Instagram that Bouroullec started sharing his drawings with the world, and that Kvadrat asked him to design the textile collection. ‘I saw obvious qualities: tactility, colour, shape,’ says Kvadrat CEO Anders Byriel. He mentions the German word unmittelbar, meaning the works have an immediate effect on the viewer. 

Ronan Bouroullec's drawings inspire textile collection

Bouroullec holds one fabric sample up to the wall, next to a drawing whose fractured lines vaguely resemble bamboo. Although his two activities, design and dessin, are quite separate, he says there are constant bridges, each one ‘irrigating’ the other. ‘It’s not like one day there’s Ronan who draws and the next, Ronan the designer.’

But unlike his supremely disciplined approach to design, his work on paper is instinctive and improvisational. Using everything from Bic pens to watercolour markers, he creates organic, abstract, often colourful forms that appear simple, yet are highly detailed with great depth and texture. He compares the process to meditation or jazz, saying he is frequently surprised to see the result. ‘It’s like a trail that you walk every day until you arrive. You see when you’ve arrived, but you don’t remember what happened while you were walking.’

Taking an olive green Japanese brush pen in his left hand, he demonstrates his technique for designing the collection for Kvadrat, using glossy paper in the same dimensions as the fabric rolls. Holding the pen at an angle, he makes a series of parallel lines. Since the paper does not fully absorb the ink, the lines are broken up, and breathe with random gaps and bubbles. It is a textured effect that Bouroullec has played with for years. For the textile collection, he says, ‘The trick is not to feel the repetition of a pattern, even though that’s what it ultimately becomes.’

Although it took more than three years of back and forth with Kvadrat to obtain the desired results, Bouroullec says his approach to the collection’s production was relatively hands-off. ‘The only time I work this way is with textiles. I design objects in a very precise way, knowing every detail of how they will be constructed. But I don’t understand how textiles are made. I provide drawings with my intentions, and it’s interesting to see how they are translated.’

The collection, comprising three different families, is subtle and sophisticated, like much of the Bouroullecs’ work. The first family, named ‘Alle’, is upholstery fabric woven of 92 per cent virgin wool and eight per cent nylon. Raised, imperfect parallel lines traverse the fabric, their position seemingly random, close together at some points, spread out at others. Bouroullec compares the texture to that of a tree trunk, saying, ‘I wanted a vibration, like it’s almost alive, like the drawings.’ The light plays with the threads differently, so the raised threads shine, while the flat background appears matte. Byriel says the effect is even better than he had hoped for. ‘It was a very difficult task. We really achieved something that looks like paint, like brushstrokes.’

The other two fabric families, ‘Sone’ and ‘Tero Outdoor’, have identical patterns and are woven from 100 per cent post-consumer recycled polyester, which Byriel says gives it a precision, as opposed to the wool’s blurrier aspect. (‘Sone’ is meant for indoor use, while ‘Tero’ is made to weather the outdoors.) More geometric, these fabrics have distinct planes of lines flowing in different directions, like an aerial view of agricultural fields. Bouroullec says, ‘It has a very organic feel, an optical effect that gives variety to the surface as the direction changes, like hills and valleys.’

Bouroullec chose the colours, but cannot explain what motivates his decisions, aside from a feeling. ‘Alle’ comes in 11 colours and a fairly neutral range, including a creamy white, a dark green on black, and one brick shade. ‘Sone’ is available in 16 solid colours, with muted tones as well as fresh shades of green and yellow. Each fabric of the ‘Tero Outdoor’ family is woven with three colours, which serves to really emphasise the patterns.

Byriel notes, ‘It is extremely difficult to translate painting into a textile that gets its own identity and beauty, but I think we succeeded. We took something beautiful and created something beautiful. Not just a resemblance, that’s not good enough.’ Now he’s looking forward to seeing how designers use the fabrics in real-life applications. ‘That’s where we become part of something bigger. That’s what I’m excited about.’

Kvadrat’s fabrics will be on show from 17-22 April at Kvadrat, Corso Monforte 15

kvadrat.com

A version of this story appears in the May 2023 issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

The Salmon Eye visitor centre rises like a giant space capsule above the rippling waters of Hardanger Fjord in south-west Norway. Completed in September 2022, this offshore visitor centre and art installation explores the future of aquaculture. ‘A place to inspire and inform people on how to better feed the planet with sustainable seafood,’ explains the venue’s manager, Sebastian Lamberg Torjusen.

Salmon Eye visitor centre and art installation

Commissioned by Eide Fjordbruk, a third-generation, family-owned salmon and trout farming company, the ellipsoid building is by Copenhagen-based Kvorning Design, who worked with Kvadrat Acoustics on a custom acoustic solution for the interiors.

While the façade is clad in 9,500 stainless steel ‘scales’ – to mimic the shiny, silvery skin of salmon – the interior, which plays host to interactive exhibitions, called for a softer, more organic material with soundproofing qualities. Here, the curving geometry of the building meant the architects couldn’t use uniformly sized acoustic panels. ‘This means a lot of the geometry had to be custom made,’ says Torjusen of the decision to use Kvadrat Acoustics’ Soft Cells panel system.

Soft Cells panels incorporate acoustic padding behind a textile layer, in this case produced at the manufacturing facilities of Norwegen weaver Innvik Sellgren, which is partially owned by Kvadrat. The panels come with a patented tensioning mechanism to keep the fabric taut, and folds and creases around corners are eliminated by a special insert which secures excess fabric.

The design team decided that the colour of the fabric would move from dark to light from the base of the building to the top, mirroring the transition from the depths of the fjord to the open skies.

Jacob Jørn Riiber, programme manager of Kvadrat Acoustics, reflects on the project’s complexity: ‘The oval shape of the project allows us to optimise panels into groups of similar shapes. But as soon as we meet features in the building like walls, windows and floors, we stop having this ability to repeat shapes. We need to crop panels at different angles, which [has resulted] in 250 unique shapes.’

Kvadrat Acoustics additionally developed a bespoke rail-based substructure for Salmon Eye, which allows the panels to be precisely spaced out and angled relative to each other. There is a consistent 3mm shadow gap between all panels – a simple detail that belies careful design and development.

kvorning.com
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Conversing with Giulio Ridolfo is rather like joining the Italian colour maestro as he saunters around a city or the countryside, using all his senses to fuel his creative process. Ostensibly meeting to talk about three new textiles he has developed for Danish textile company Kvadrat, he meanders, pausing to note a yellow flower on a photo here, listen to a dissonant note there, or admire the layered colours of a Paul Klee painting on a postcard he picked up somewhere. Ridolfo, who trained as a fashion designer before becoming a colour adviser to many leading interiors and fashion companies, draws inspiration from his surroundings, always in analogue. ‘I have to touch things. I have to show you a postcard, I have boxes of them, look at this beautiful nymph from the archaeology museum in Napoli.’

He is such a bower bird, travelling with a seemingly bottomless suitcase to cart his haul home, that he calls himself Mario Poppins. And like the character from the children’s book, there is something magical or alchemical in how he translates mementoes into a realm of colour. ‘To me, work is like a travelogue. I learn by doing, I collect my souvenirs, which I can use or not, I blend stories, I can create mock-ups about a postcard or a piece of leather I bought in Australia. The system of colour to me is nothing, if not compared to other sources.’

Giulio Ridolfo and Kvadrat: the Kvadrat Steelcut collection

Ridolfo has worked with Kvadrat for 15 years. He likes to say that he used his southern European colour sensibility to ‘contaminate’ a company rooted in the design traditions of a region known for its cool Northern light. The relationship began with the first version of Steelcut, developed in 2004 by Dutch master weaver Frans Dijkmeijer, who invited Ridolfo to create the colour palette. The Italian is so embedded within Kvadrat that, when he conducted a workshop at the headquarters in Ebeltoft a few years ago, he timed it for summer solstice so he could weave inspirations from the Sankt Hans celebrations into a new colour range. He makes the point that he doesn’t design textiles, but rather creates colours in the context of the textiles. He believes that colour is nothing without a material, and vice versa.

An example of his impact came with Steelcut Trio, launched in 2007, a basketweave construction made up of three threads that has an almost faceted surface. Unlike the original Steelcut, which was piece-dyed (coloured as a whole), Steelcut Trio is yarn-dyed (the individual threads are dyed before weaving), which allowed Ridolfo to bring complex and sophisticated colour effects. His latest iteration, Steelcut Quartet, blends four colours. In musical terms, Trio is a minimal harmonic rhythm by [American minimalist composer] Steve Reich, whereas Quartet is more of a jazz standard, he says. ‘Quartet is the result of a beautiful blending of four yarns with a kind of vibration. The yarns are the same as Steelcut Trio. We only play with more. To me, Quartet is fired by [Canadian jazz composer] Oscar Peterson, a good standard, like a piece of jazz that you can play in different ways.’

To demonstrate his point, he takes a sample of Quartet with a weft (effectively a base note) of purple. It is the dominant tone, used also as a yarn in the warp combined with another thicker one made by twisting three colours into one yarn, creating more vibrancy and nuance. A deeper version with the same purple base is directly inspired by the layering of moody colours in Klee’s Angelus Militans (1940). ‘If you are an artist you can work with layering, you see the colour becomes deeper and deeper when you layer one, two, three, four colours.’

As well as updating the palette of Steelcut to an iteration called Steelcut 3, with 19 new colours, Ridolfo also developed a checked version made out of 100 per cent recycled polyester. Intentionally colouring it in bright, happy hues, Ridolfo called it Beat (to be launched in 2023). The fabric seems to have the effect of synaesthesia on him, he almost taps his feet to the tune he can see in the jaunty checks. ‘It’s like a beat, like a sound,’ he says before rattling off the fabric’s many references, ranging from cotton stripes in Sumatra, to colourful ski suits, the nymph from Naples, and a vintage Hermès foulard in emerald green with a hand-rolled border in chocolate brown. ‘This is only the beginning. There will be many, many colours, big checks, small checks,’ he says, with a faraway look in his eye.

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In the eight years since Kvadrat and Raf Simons joined forces to develop an upholstery range, their luscious fabrics have gained a near-mythical status. New launches during Salone del Mobile and 3 Days of Design are always greeted with fervour, and tote bags made from the fabrics and offered to a select few on these occasions have become collectibles among those in-the-know. Thus the arrival of a full Kvadrat/Raf Simons accessories collection in August 2022 is destined to be welcomed with open arms: so confident is the Danish textile brand in this collection’s success that they are breaking from tradition to open a dedicated accessories store in Copenhagen.

Kvadrat Raf Simons accessories launch

The collection comprises cushions, throws, a tote bag and a shopping bag, as well as a small tray, an accessory box, a magazine holder, a cap, and two key chains: the last two marking a departure from Kvadrat’s long-standing focus on the home. Most of them are made from Vidar 4, a tightly woven fabric from the Kvadrat/Raf Simons range with a gentle satin surface finish (it ‘gives a sense of artistry that does not feel industrial,’ describes Simons), while a handful incorporate leather. Uniting these items is what Kvadrat and Simons refer to as a ‘Shaker System’: a horizontal bar based on the peg rail used by Shakers, a Protestant religious group known for its distinctive design and architectural style.

‘The collection consists of a unified series, a storage system and edit of accessories honouring utility, function and materiality. While living in the US, I developed a deep appreciation of Shaker culture. Its ordered homes and simple functional furniture are considered the first modern American design,’ explains Simons.

The wall-mounted system is striking in appearance: Simons says the choice of material – powder-coated aluminium, upholstered in Vidar 4 – nods at once to the minimalist sculptures of John McCracken, and the work of French decorative arts designer Jacques Adnet, who made cladding furniture in leather his métier. ‘This is a major flashback to my early days as a graduate industrial designer. Whatever it is in terms of design, it has to serve the human being and it has to be put in the context of the environment in which people are living. We created the Shaker System to be visually appealing, but the main focus was its functionality.’

Functionality, too, is the driving force behind the individual accessories, which have pared-back forms, limited ornamentation, and a strict colour palette, allowing their materials to truly shine. ‘If the product is pure and simple, you have to pay extra attention to your quality – sometimes you hide defects with complicated things and lots of stitches and stuff, but there was nothing to hide here,’ he says. Still, Simons is not overly insistent on perfection, and he’s particularly excited by the ability of the leather to develop a patina over time. ‘A lot of objects here will patinate because you will have them in your hands all the time. That’s the beauty, when you feel that it’s a living piece.’

The collection is available in four colourways: black, off-white, dark green and pink. Where the materials vary, Simons has taken great pains to ensure that they have the same tone: the Vidar exterior of the cap is carefully matched with its sateen inner lining, similarly, the Vidar body and leather handles and front pocket of the tote bag blend seamlessly together. The visual effect of having multiple accessories in a consistent colour is impressive, though Simons believes that the colours (particularly the dark green and pink) combine well together, and is happy for consumers to mix and match. He’s even designed two of the throws to be double-faced, in contrasting colours.

Aside from these throws, which are conspicuously imprinted with the Kvadrat/Raf Simons logo, the designer has kept the branding subtle: a small monogram engraved on the metal buckle of the cap, an embossed logo on the leather front pocket of the Vidar tote bag, engravings on the individual rings of the key chain. Unusually, the lambswool throw and lambswool cushion are adorned with the original Kvadrat label from 1968, a detail that enthuses Simons: ‘that May ’68 period of cultural and political revolution and its aftermath was an extremely interesting time, where social principles also found their way to the arts, architecture, city planning and design,’ he observes. ‘It became more about serving the people, functionality instead of solely aesthetic objectives. This ‘60s attitude is still discernible at Kvadrat: there’s this feeling of total freedom, total experiment, reflecting a hippie kind of attitude.’

To present the new collection, Simons is showcasing the accessories on the Shaker System alongside furniture from Swedish designer Axel Einar Hjorth, who was particularly active during the 1920s and 1930s. ‘You can instantly see his pragmatic focus on simplicity and functionality as well as its formal connection to the Shakers’ aesthetics,’ he explains. True to Kvadrat’s Danish roots, the dedicated store will be in Copenhagen, but the brand is also collaborating with 48 retail partners around the globe for special pop-ups, among them Dover Street Market in London, Andreas Murkudis in Berlin and 10 Corso Como in Milan. Here, ‘people can really immerse themselves in the world of Kvadrat/Raf Simons and feel and see how Raf envisioned the accessories in the home and understand the Shaker concept,’ says Njusja de Gier, senior vice president of marketing and digital at Kvadrat. 

Ultimately, Simons wants his collection to encourage users to approach accessories with the same care and consideration that they give to larger items of furniture: ‘I hope it inspires people to buy small objects with the same mind as when they buy a chair, to put it in the context of their environment.’

INFORMATION

The Kvadrat/Raf Simons accessories collection launches on 10 August 2022. The dedicated store is located on Møntergade 3D, Copenhagen
shaker.kvadratrafsimons.com, kvadratrafsimons.com
Dover Street Market in London will host an exclusive installation, see london.doverstreetmarket.com

Danish textile designer Kvadrat has opened the doors to its new flagship New York showrooms during New York Design Week 2022, with California-based industrial designer Jonathan Olivares at the helm of the main area in the 8,000 sq ft space located at 475 Park Avenue and 58th Street. Combining two connected showrooms, each with their own entrance, the new flagship takes inspiration from the company’s ethos and emphasis on creative collaborations across the disciplines. An adjacent library-inspired area is designed by Vincent Van Duysen.

Olivares calls on Kvadrat’s authority on colour for the space, with sky-blue hues a bold foil for a catwalk in recyclable solid aluminium plate and a ship-inspired interior. The catwalk, as well as making an aesthetically pleasing showcase for the company’s upholstery textiles, curtains, and rugs, also invites visitors to consider art projects and exhibitions on show in the gallery area.

‘The opening of our showroom in New York marks our third space in the US and it is a very proud moment to see Kvadrat on Park Avenue,’ says Kvadrat CEO Anders Byriel. ‘Jonathan has really embodied the Kvadrat spirit in the showroom; it is a space for our clients to meet, have conversations, work on projects; we will host workshops and exhibitions – it is a dynamic space.’

It is an ethos encapsulated by Olivares in a design that sets the textile sample room, corridors, stairs, meeting rooms, offices, and restrooms on a 6ft x 6ft grid in homage to Kvadrat’s name, the Danish word for square. Furniture developed by Olivares fills the symmetrical space, including the flexible ‘Square’ chair created with Moroso and architectural-inspired metal and wooden tables. The chairs will showcase the available colourways for each upholstery, and will be covered in Twill Weave and Broken Twill Weave for the opening.

‘Kvadrat’s name derives from the squares on gridded point paper, which were used to record textile patterns before computers,’ Olivares says. ‘This history was important for me when designing the company’s first New York showroom.’

INFORMATION
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ADDRESS

475 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022

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While travelling around the British countryside, chances are you will come across a flock of colourful sheep in a field at some point in your journey. A familiar sight for country folks, and a colourful surprise for others, smit marks – the spray- painted patches on the sheep – are commonly used by shepherds in the UK to identify animals in their herd. The chromatic custom is also the starting point for Peter Saville’s Technicolour collection of upholstery textiles, rugs and curtains created in collaboration with Kvadrat and presented at Salone del Mobile and Copenhagen's 3 Days of Design, in September 2021. 

Saville grew up visiting the countryside with his family, and developed a fascination with what he calls ‘rural graffiti’. ‘I’ve always seen the spray can as something modern, because it’s a technological development. There’s something very pop about it. So when I saw sheep sprayed, I thought, that’s kind of pop,’ he says. One of the most celebrated British graphic designers, Saville is best known as a co-founder of music label Factory Records in 1978, and for album covers for the likes of Joy Division and New Order. But his impact on popular culture stretched much further over the years, as he served as creative director for the city of Manchester, and worked with a plethora of fashion clients on advertising and brand identity.

Peter Saville and Kvadrat

Saville is a long-term collaborator of Kvadrat, working with the Danish textile company since 2004 on every aspect of its visual communication. ‘I cannot think of any visual communication designer or graphic designer living today who is more influential than Peter,’ says the brand’s CEO Anders Byriel. In the time he has collaborated with Saville, he notes, the company has grown eight-fold, and Saville was an integral part of the transformation. ‘We came from being very rooted in Scandinavian culture, to being the global brand we are today. We see ourselves as a contemporary culture producer, and it’s very much Peter who has helped us formulate this idea.’ 

Byriel had been asking the designer for several years to create a textile project for the company. ‘I didn’t do it before because I took it seriously,’ explains Saville. ‘They work at very different tempo: graphic design is very high-speed, fashion is pretty high-speed, pop culture in general is high-speed. And what Kvadrat do is slower, but with depth. 

Technicolour: from the pastoral to the cultural landscape

‘Ever since I’ve started working with Kvadrat, I’ve begun to understand a little bit about the use of wool in textile production and about the industrial processes from the field to the furniture, and begun to think, what would happen if the colour of [the smit marks] wasn’t washed out from the wool? What would happen if this colour made it all the way through the production process?’ 

The answer to this somewhat provocative question comprises an upholstery fabric, two curtains and three rugs. Through a series of conversations, Saville, Stine Find Osther, vice president of design at Kvadrat, and Dienke Dekker, design manager at Kvadrat Rugs, translated his ideas onto the textiles of the Technicolour collection. 

An upholstery fabric made of 100 per cent English wool and manufactured in England, ‘Fleck’ is perhaps the most subtle element of the collection, and the one that best brings Saville’s ideas to life. Featuring 11 colour interpretations, the ‘Fleck’ fabric series is based on neutral backgrounds, with bright yellow, blue and red fibres adding chromatic depth to the textiles; small, discreet moments of colour. ‘I love the idea that a chair in a waiting room will reward you: you sit down and you think it’s a black chair, and then you realise that it’s not, there’s actually a cosmos of colour inside this black fabric.’ ‘Fleck’ follows a 2013 collaboration between Kvadrat, Saville, graphic design agency Graphic Thought Facility and weave designers Wallace Sewell, on a textile cover for the book Kvadrat Interwoven. Featuring slim colourful yarns embedded in a white and grey fabric, the piece set an early foundation for the fabrics in the Technicolour collection. 

Made of iridescent Trevira CS, the two curtains in the collection include ‘Flux’, defined by a colourful rainbow stripe motif, and ‘Fade’, a transparent curtain declined in eight full-bodied colours, featuring hints of iridescent neon that emerge with movement. The Technicolour range is then completed by three ultra-tactile rugs, handwoven and tufted by robots, offering different interpretations of the colourful wool concept. Crafted from pure new wool, ‘Flock’ and ‘Fleece’ mimic the sheep’s coats that inspired Saville, while ‘Field’, made of fine bamboo yarn, takes a more industrial approach. 

Bringing together farming, industry and culture was one of Saville’s goals with the collection, which he describes as ‘making a journey from the pastoral landscape into the cultural landscape’. He continues: ‘The idea is that it reminds you of the land, of the fields, I am interested in bringing some of the outside into the inside.’

For Byriel, the collection is not as provocative as it is purely poetic: he likens Kvadrat to a publishing house, its textile collections to a catalogue of books. ‘You need to produce poetry, you need to produce something extraordinary,’ he says.

One thing Byriel hopes to achieve with the Technicolour collection is to help set the foundation for what a post-Covid interior landscape could look like. ‘What I see around me in the interior world right now, things are very “good enough”, as I call it. There’s not so much excitement,’ he says. ‘So when Peter came up with this, I thought it was just what we needed: the aesthetic language needs to go somewhere new, and this is our proposal.’

Watch: the pastoral inspiration behind the collection

Technicolour, a collection by Peter Saville for Kvadrat, Film by Eva Weber

INFORMATION

The collection will be on show at Kvadrat’s Milan flagship during Salone del Mobile (5-10 September 2021), then in Copenhagen and London later in the month

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Few have contributed as much to Danish heritage as the midcentury designer Nanna Ditzel, renowned for having broken traditional thinking patterns with her prolific output, which spanned from furniture and jewellery to silverware and textiles. Where the latter is concerned, Ditzel’s acclaimed Hallingdal from 1965 is revered in the textile world. The first textile to be released by leading manufacturer Kvadrat, it went on to become an archetype for many that followed. 

Nanna Ditzel and Danh Vo: Kvadrat Sisu

Stine Find Osther, vice president of design at Kvadrat, says, ‘Sisu directly links to Hallingdal, which is one of Kvadrat’s first textiles and plays a big part in our story. It also acts as a timely reminder that most textile designers have traditionally been women – which is sometimes overlooked. The idea of underlining the defining role of female designers informed our exploration of the Kvadrat archives from the start.’ 

Ditzel was a key figure in the renewal of Danish design in the 1990s, and this progression by Vo feels fitting as the next step in revitalising a classic. Sisu showcases the enduring relevance of Danish design, carried forward by Vo’s curiosity about how textiles shape the experience of furniture, which is what originally drew his attention to Ditzel’s work. ‘I was curious about materials and what defines their purposes, or occupations so to speak. Why is it that fabric cannot be in the foreground? How do we differentiate between these kinds of things in art and design?’ says Vo.

‘It was a good experiment to go back to a time when people were much more wild. I really believe in empirical knowledge and to gain that knowledge is to work with it, see the potential and jump into it and see how it’s functioning. If we think that colours are all about light, and how light reflects a surface, why is it that painting is this protagonist of culture, while textiles are made to reflect light in a much more constructive way in the house?’ Vo continues. 

The original Hallingdal is available in an expansive scale of vibrant pastel colourways, while Sisu comes in a more tightly curated 16 colourways, matched to Hallingdal to ensure a seamless complement. The project is a testament to the circular nature of design. ‘Many companies don’t design things to last. So, it is beautiful to see how seriously Kvadrat has reproduced this textile with every intention to make it last,’ Vo says. 

In a continuation of the pioneering work that Kvadrat is known for, Sisu is both contemporary and classic, breathing new life into a deeply rooted Scandinavian design icon driven by simplicity and innovation.

INFORMATION

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Launched in 1968 with a collection of fabrics by Nanna Ditzel, Kvadrat has quckily become the go-to brand for upholstery textiles. Made in Ebeltoft, Denmark, its collections are created by the world's most celebrated talents and used in homes, museums and hospitality projects globally.

A new film charts the history of this wondrous design company, featuring striking imagery from its 50-plus years as well as testimonials from some of the many designers and artists who regularly collaborate with the brand on collections, products and special installations. 

Kvadrat: what some of the world's most celebrated designers have to say

‘There is this total freedom, there is this total experiment, a hippie kind of attitude, although it’s a business it feels very free,’ comments Belgian designer Raf Simons, whose collection of textiles for Kvadrat was launched as a brand in 2014 and expanded to include home accessories as well as upholstery fabrics.

‘It does feel like a family, it does feel like a community of friends,’ adds American designer Jonathan Olivares, who has been tasked to design Kvadrat's New York showroom opening later in 2021. ‘They’re a perfect melting pot of art, architecture, engineering, design, colour research.’

Long-term collaborators Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, who have worked with Kvadrat on textiles as well as products such as the ‘Ready Made’ curtain collection from 2013, focus on Kvadrat's colour expertise. ‘They really master colours,’ says Erwan. ‘[they are] incredibly strong at making a huge variety of textile, but always with a very centered philosophy.’ Adds Ronan: ‘when you see the range of colour, it’s a marvel, it’s like opening a box of water colours: the delicacy of greens, the beauty of a yellow.’

Kvadrat's creative expression also come to life through the work of artists such as Pipilotti Rist. ‘I share with Kvadrat my love for colours,’ says the German artist. ‘Colour is like music, you fall into it, it’s dangerous, it’s overwhelming.’

INFORMATION

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This year’s 3 Days of Design, which is set to take place in Copenhagen from 3 to 5 September, will see Kvadrat Febrik explore the potential of its knitted textiles in an exhibition titled ‘Knit! By Kvadrat’. The young Dutch brand, formerly known as Febrik and newly acquired by Danish textile giant Kvadrat, has commissioned 28 emerging designers from around the world to create furniture and objects using its fabric range.

‘The textile is the protagonist; we’re giving the designers the freedom to do whatever they like,’ says Njusja de Gier, Kvadrat Group’s senior vice president of branding and communications, and curator of the company’s many collaborations. ‘Knit! By Kvadrat’ is the fourth in its Design Projects series, following installations dedicated to the Hallingdal 65, Divina and Canvas textile ranges. For Febrik’s co-founder and creative director Renee Merckx, the new exhibition is a celebration of knitting innovation.

‘The knitting technique gives us so many possibilities and ways to design a textile; not only can we work with colours, but we can also play with a knit’s three-dimensionality by creating new binding structures,’ she says. The pieces – four of which are detailed below – are eclectic and colourful, bringing to life the opportunities offered by Kvadrat Febrik’s product.

‘Berg’, by Lim + Lu

Hong Kong-based duo Elaine Lu and Vincent Lim were drawn to a specific fabric when they created ‘Berg’ (opposite and previous page), which references the majesty of icebergs while accentuating the sculptural properties of Febrik’s knits. A departure from the couple’s typically vibrantly coloured output, ‘Berg’ utilises a crisp white fabric to accentuate the knitted texture. This is complemented by a polished stainless steel base, to create the illusion that the fabric is foating. The design was inspired by Lim and Lu’s honeymoon in Iceland, where they were astonished by the architecture of icebergs. ‘An iceberg as an object has a universal mystique that everyone is drawn to,’ says Lim.

‘Coalesce’, by Studio Truly Truly

Manipulated materials feature frequently in the work of husband-and-wife duo Kate and Joel Booy, of Rotterdam’s Studio Truly Truly. They were captivated by the flexibility of Febrik knits, and their piece explores creative ways to upholster an object. ‘That technicality is interesting – seeking out the rules, then figuring out how to play with them,’ says Joel. Their ‘Coalesce’ chair (previous page) represents their dual creative impulses: to explore material processes, but also create pieces that are aesthetically polished. The chair is bolted onto a glass bottom, to appear as if it’s pressed into the glass; there’s seemingly a conversation between hard and soft elements.

‘Ofset’ chairs, by Ana Kraš

When Ana Kraš received her fabric samples and laid them across her desk, she loved how they worked together. She wanted to construct something using multiple fabrics. ‘When I decided on chairs, I thought about something more conceptual – something that would mimic the experience of visiting a gallery, something temporary,’ says the New-York-based designer. Created with o$set panels, her collection of seats (above and previous page) evokes a waiting room. In a palette ranging from brown, apricot and tan to rich blue and grey, the chairs incorporate the linear motifs for which Kraš is known, while powder-coated aluminium.

‘Chroma Columns’, by Raw Color

Colour was the natural starting point for this Eindhoven-based, multidisciplinary design studio, which decided to create something more playful than a standard furniture piece. ‘Chroma Columns’ (previous page) is a vertical display that highlights the shifting nature of colour. The studio installed a series of upholstered triangular prisms on motorised plinths, which rotate to create a kaleidoscopic effect. ‘You feel the sense of beautiful colour combinations,’ says studio co-founder Christoph Brach, ‘and the sense that the piece is open to be interpreted in the space in which it lives, be it as a display piece, a room divider or otherwise.’ 

Explore more Knit! by Kvadrat designs below

INFORMATION

‘Knit! By Kvadrat,’ 3-5 September at Kvadrat Copenhagen

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ADDRESS

Pakhus 48
Klubiensvej 22

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Giulio Ridolfo is the man behind some of the most successful textiles and chromatic palettes in contemporary interior design. The Italian colourist is the ultimate expert when it comes to colour, and his chromatic touch has been applied to furniture by brands such as of Moroso and Vitra, while his work for textile authority Kvadrat is legendary in the design world.

Now the Danish fabric company celebrates this colour legacy with a new design book. Published by Phaidon, Materialising Colour, Journeys with Giulio Ridolfo follows the designer through his travels to unpack his incredible colour sensibility. Botanical photographer Howard Sooley accompanied Ridolfo on his journeys to document the process, while curator Jane Withers wrote the stories behind the trips.

Giulio Ridolfo and Kvadrat

‘I first met Giulio in the early 1990s, in my early days at Kvadrat,’ says the company’s CEO, Anders Byriel. ‘I always looked forward to conversations with him because they were so broad-ranging: art, fashion, design, music, film, food. This expansive cultural perspective is deeply embedded in his work. The journeys recorded here illuminate his curiosity and experimentation with colour, and the search to understand context and give colour meaning. They also reveal the skill behind this singular vision.’

It was Byriel who, several years ago, thought about documenting what he defined as one of design’s most important but undervalued aspects. This exclusive look at Ridolfo’s colour journeys is fascinating as it is intimate, as the designer takes us to in his native Friuli, Northern Italy, to the Danish coastline, and to Gujarat, western India, then back to Kvadrat’s manufacturing facilities to show us the textiles coming to life through colour. A final chapter explores his relationship with designer Patricia Urquiola and their shared views on the application of textiles ‘beyond living spaces’.

Giulio Ridolfo’s creative process

Sooley follows Ridolfo through these journeys, documenting his research into the meaning of colour, which is presented in both a compelling travel diary as well as through a series of compositions made from found objects, both natural and artificial. Four visual essays present an insight into Ridolfo’s approach, from the exploration of his surroundings to the collection of ordinary objects, which he then combines into striking compositions that become the starting point for each hue. These assemblages mark the start of a colour exercise for Ridolfo: multilayered, vibrant and alive, and his imaginative approach is based on observation of nature, experience and subjectivity.

In his work, Ridolfo eschews the more scientific routes of conventional colour theory, dubbing his own approach ‘homeopatic’. ‘Ridolfo uses colour and textiles to stimulate sensibilities and provoke moods, to evoke and celebrate a sense of place. His work is deeply rooted in observation, intuition, materiality, poetics and the mutability of the natural world,’ writes Withers. ‘One of his favourite sayings is ‘You can’t mix colour in theory’.’

Ridolfo studied fashion at Domus Academy in the 1980s, later setting up a fashion showroom in Udine. His fashion background is evident throughout his work, not only for his unique sensibility to colour, but also for his approach, describing the upholstery process as ‘dressing’ a design object to bring his personality to life.

Conversations with product designers usually start early in the creative process. ‘From the first sketches for a project, I analyse what kind of touch to give a chair or sofa. Is it woolly or leathery, soft or sharp or smooth? What textile would suit its shape, suit the body of a chair? A really good work is when you don’t distinguish textile from shape,’ he explains.

Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy

The first journey, through the Friulian region, offers a glimpse into the influences that have shaped Ridolfo’s approach to colour from early on in his life. The subtle shades of the raw autumnal landscape, the region’s architecture and the local craftsmanship all play a part in this first colour story. ‘The colours are not so strong in Friuli. They are soft and rich,’ he says. ‘It is a region with no thrills or showy off-ness – it is rough and humble. But it has a richness from the land, from alluvial soil, and a balance that comes from doing the same thing for centuries.’

They travel through hills, mountains, lakes and rivers, to a disused marble quarry and to Italian writer Pierpaolo Pasolini’s hometown (his descriptions of light and colour have inspired Ridolfo since a young age). ‘On this journey into his origins […] it is as if Ridolfo is signing postcards to send us as gifts, mingling cultural influences with echoes of the past,’ writes Udine-based writer and curator Elena Commessatti.

Jutland, Denmark

The second trip takes Ridolfo and Sooley to Ebeltoft, where the designer is holding a workshop at Kvadrat’s headquarters to work on the Steelcut Trio textile range. Ridolfo chose to visit in the summer when, Withers writes, he finds the light to be the most characteristic of the company’s Nordic design heritage. The designer brings in found objects and inspirations, and mixes them with the grays and blues from the sea and sky into a moodboard that defines his preferred atmosphere: a process that will look fascinating to any colour enthusiast.

Gujarat, India

When following Ridolfo through his journey into the land of Indigo, the book goes into delightful detail describing different indigo dyeing techniques, with visual reportages of Ridolfo’s visit to specialised workshops. The designer visits the region to explore the blue palette right where it originated. It’s a trip with ultimately a commercial goal in mind: expanding his Remix family of textiles for Kvadrat, starting from the colour blue. But there is nothing commercial about the journey: it is very much Ridolfo’s personal immersion into the colour and its origins, and a fitting demonstration of his unique approach to the craft. In Gujarat, he also experiments with other complementary colours, creating a palette of warm tones drawn from insects, marigold, turmeric, pomegranate and tamarind.

The indigo journey ends in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, where Ridolfo visits Kvadrat’s textile mill to work on the colour range for the Remix series. The tome takes us through the more developmental steps of the palette created in collaboration with Kvadrat’s art director, Stine Find Osther, offering a 360 degree view of Ridolfo’s process. It’s a fascinating succession – from the raw energy of the Gujarati workshops and the inspirations found along the way to the precise scientific processes in the labs – a contrast that highlights Ridolfo’s ability to operate between worlds to achieve his palettes.

Pale Shelter – Giulio Ridolfo with Patricia Urquiola and Patrizia Moroso

The final chapter in the book describes an installation staged in the woods close to the home of Patrizia Moroso, made up of insect-like shapes inspired by nomadic settlements and high performance sports equipment. The installation features shapes made from camping structures covered in Kvadrat textiles designed by Ridolfo and Urquiola and assembled in Moroso’s workshop nearby, resulting in an exploration on on nomadic habitation and how colour and textiles can become inhabitable space. As one expects from this creative group, inspirations came from incredibly diverse places, from Alberto Giacometti’s slim figures to butterfly wings.

Appendix

Usually often overlooked section, the appendix here serves as an arbitrary ‘A–Z of Colour’ and features some essential colours explained, as well as the most pivotal moments in colour history according to Ridolfo. The alphabetic index ranges from David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust (‘a kaleidoscopic cartoon of colour’, wrote a 1971 review), to flags and fluorescence. It is also illustrated with squares of colours re-named by the designer, from ‘The Saddest Maroon’ (his name for a very specific shade of brown) to ‘Dense Non Sense Yellow’ (the colour of kiwifruit). With its gastronomic references (‘Prosciutto Melted Pink’ and ‘Pasta e Piselli Green’, for example), this section is a delight to get lost into.

Ridolfo’s no-rules approach comes through as a perfect combination of informed and impulsive. ‘It’s more interesting to find order in the disorder, spontaneity, the mix of wildness and control, the play of opposites,’ he notes.

‘Giulio has been rewriting the alphabet of colours for years, with courageous liberty, and independence,’ adds Commessatti – two characteristics which are well exemplified throughout the pages. ‘Materialising Colour gives an insight into Giulio’s extraordinarily personal colour methodology,’ writes Byriel. ‘But I hope it will also inspire other designers to discover their own colour journey’.

INFORMATION

Materialising Colour: Journeys with Giulio Ridolfo, £59.95, published by Phaidon

phaidon.com

‘I hoover now these days, a lot,’ says Raf Simons over the phone, each of us speaking from home. We’re discussing our domestic activities during these different and uncertain times. By chance, home is key to the Belgian fashion designer’s latest launch with Danish brand Kvadrat – two new textiles that exude a concert of comfort and cosiness.

‘They give me so much depth and time to develop things which I definitely relate to,’ says Simons fondly, reflecting on when Kvadrat CEO Anders Byriel proposed the collaboration to him. Kvadrat’s deadlines were somewhat different to his experiences in fashion – he got over a year to develop the first collection in 2014.

A slow and steady pace describes Simons’s latest collection with Kvadrat well – two new lines titled Helia and Silas. ‘I said that I would like to make a little switch in the feel of the fabric,’ Simons explains of his approach to this range. Previous collections have showcased dynamic juxtaposition in colours, and build on the historic techniques of Kvadrat. ‘For this collection I said I would like to stretch it out now and add elements of tactility and surface, physically as well as visually.’ The result is two textiles that have a thicker warp, are highly textured and soothing to hold.

Home, now more than ever, is an integral part of Simon’s life. ‘The home is a place where I can slow the whole thing down. More and more I think about functionality, calmness and privacy.’ Simons particularly sees homeliness in the Silas fabric, and the velvety, slightly rippled texture that is ‘not too pristine and clean. I wanted to [create] something that feels like you have been living with it for a long time.’

Simon’s mind went to furs, bouclé and cashmeres for inspiration too. ‘I was thinking about my time at Jil Sander back in the day. It was a daily thing to work with cashmeres, and the brand was into the idea of comfort and luxury, not only literally but also in a kind of feeling sense.’ Helia is bouclé textile that is woven to resemble the fur texture, with a patterned effect, while Silas has a cotton wool-style  surface, achieved though several days of unraveling and beating.

‘One of the things I’m most interested and obsessed with is colour,’ Simons expresses when discussing the palette choice. Compared to the brightness and bichrome intensity of previous ranges, the colours for these two new ranges are solid, warm and earthy. ‘There is also a couple of teddy bear colours,’ Simons mentions of the biscuit tones.

With these two textiles, Simons was eager to hone in on human feel, and how our bodies interact with them, a technical challenge for the Kvadrat lab that was achieved seamlessly, especially with Silas – Simons muses, ‘effectively it looks like a kind of cosy warm cashmere coat.’

INFORMATION

kvadratrafsimons.com

Experts in the history of window fittings (yes, they exist) claim that the first appearance of blinds dates back to as early as the Ancient Egyptians, who would use wet swathes of cloth to keep out dirt and sun. Early Chinese civilisations were found to have used thin stalks of bamboo, while the slatted form of a Venetian blind actually originated in Persia around 1100 AD.

These days, we’re a lot more sophisticated when it comes to shielding our interiors. Especially now that Kvadrat has joined the game and elevated the ubiquitous household fitting to a ‘best in class’ solution.

Launching today in Copenhagen, Kvadrat Shade is the latest offering from the Danish company, which has teamed up with window covering specialist, Coulisse to make it possible. The project has seen the Bouroullec brothers create hardware for a range of typically minimal textile blinds, rooted in a design concept that plays on colour, transparency and most of all, flexibility.

‘It’s always a pleasure to play with windows, light and colours,’ says Erwan Bouroullec, who worked alongside his brother, Ronan, on the project. ‘Unlike typical alternatives, the Kvadrat Shade solutions opens intriguing possibilities to elevate interiors by playing with tones, transparencies and textures. Most of the time, the blinds are just solving problems. They’re technically driven, but they’ve forgotten the human and they have no taste. We’re trying our best to make sure there are enough tones to fit the atmosphere of the room'. 

With quality in mind, materials used for the mechanisms are premium while also being PVC-free, in compliance with standards on harmful chemicals. Kvadrat’s high-performance textiles evolve to include an option layered with ultra-fine aluminimum, which is engineered to reduce heating and cooling costs in the home or office.

When it came to designing the hardware (the rolling systems, pulleys and cassettes), the Bouroullec duo had modularity at the forefront of their minds, resulting in a range of ‘meticulously engineered’ components, available in a range of finishes, that offer architects flexibility to the nth degree. Whatsmore, the blinds can be automatically controlled, allowing building management systems to be timed to coincide with the changing daylight.

Christian Baum Blaakær, managing director of Kvadrat Shade adds, ‘it meets the longstanding need for an aesthetically outstanding, officient and versatile roller blind solution, which provides the freedom to create compelling interior themes, where all textiles, textures and colours are in perfect harmony,’

INFORMATION

kvadrat.dk

Wallpaper* Handmade projects have a habit of taking designers and manufacturers outside their comfort zones and turning creative expectations on their heads. This was certainly the case when we asked British manufacturer Savoir Beds to transform one of its finely crafted beds into a vertical, huggable installation for our Wellness + Wonder showcase.

‘I was excited by the whole idea,’ says the company’s managing director Alistair Hughes. ‘The Wellness + Wonder theme fits perfectly with Savoir’s raison d’être: providing a beautiful night’s sleep.’ Having debuted in 1905 with bespoke beds for the Savoy Hotel, the brand produces handmade beds in its London workshop using natural materials, such as horse hair, cashmere and lambswool, and traditional techniques, from hand-teasing (manipulating the curled, loose hair) to tufting (ensuring an even fill).

To collaborate on the project, we approached Mae Engelgeer, a Dutch textile designer who has also embraced product and furniture design. Her recent work – including a series of rugs for CC-Tapis, tables and shelves for Baars & Bloemhoff, and wallpapers for Texturae – comprises a study of curves and simple geometric shapes, and her concept for our hugging column is equally well-rounded. The design, ‘a soft, half moon-shaped shelter’, takes a Savoir Beds mattress and flips it vertically, curving it at the edges to create a cocoon; enter for a moment of quiet contemplation, or hug it from the outside for mental and physical comfort. It’s the antithesis of a punch bag.

‘I studied Savoir Beds to see what makes their bedding so special,’ says Engelgeer, who then integrated key facets into her design. The company’s springs and the traditional lambswool and horse hair elements are visible on the column’s open sides, which expose the inner workings of a Savoir creation. Engelgeer also worked new materials into the installation – a textile she had developed with Kvadrat, produced in a special hue for this project, and terrazzo flooring by Aectual.

‘Mae really threw herself into the project, and took the time to fully understand the skills and processes used by our craftspeople,’ says Hughes. ‘Her approach was to incorporate our strengths into the design while staying true to her vision; she worked wonders in terms of bringing the tradition of our skills into a very contemporary piece.’

Although the Savoir team are used to working on one-off, bespoke creations, Hughes admits they were ‘initially bemused’ at the prospect of creating a vertical bed of sorts. However, ‘like any group of highly skilled craftspeople, they love to try new things and push their skills to the limit’, he says. ‘The number of selfies at the end showed the pride the team took in the work.’

When it was displayed at Wallpaper* Handmade in Milan this year, the hugging column proved a strong, totemic presence. ‘I think this project is really about wellness first,’ says Engelgeer. ‘To take the time to hug, to let go of everyday life. When you do that, you get time to wonder, and that can inspire the best ideas.’

As originally featured in the August 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*233)

INFORMATION

mae-engelgeer.nl; savoirbeds.co.uk

It’s no small feat during the marathon that is Milan Design Week for a project to make you want to stick around a while. But Kvadrat’s exhibition at Garage Ventuno in collaboration with Raf Simons did exactly that. Now in its sixth iteration, Kvadrat and Raf Simons presented four new textiles in an extraordinary exhibition that encompassed both mid-century architecture and the darlings of the London culinary scene.

Within the industrial space, the Antwerp-based designer installed what can only be described as ‘Raf Simons Suburban’: a vaguely dystopian neighbourhood rendered in the designer’s unique vision. Entitled ‘No Man’s Land’, it consists of a series of prefab wood and steel structures by mid-century architect Jean Prouvé. Outside the cabins’ front doors, shredded textiles are scattered across the floor in lieu of grass, Le Corbusier Lampe Diabolo lights act as street lamps, fences are colourfully constructed from textiles — Novus 1 and Novus 2 both from the new collection — and a monumental front garden featuring a luscious bed of wildflowers by longtime collaborator Mark Colle sprawls outwards towards the entrance. It is exactly what one imagines the suburbs would look like with Simons in charge.

Within the three Prouvé buildings, there is a seating area for visitors — decked out in Rietveld Utrecht chairs by Cassina — a home and a workshop, inside which Kvadrat has narrated the production process that goes into making their sophisticated textiles. The collection includes four new upholstery fabrics influenced by Simons’ interest in fashion, art, music, design and architecture: Atom, Phlox, Novus 1 and Novus 2, which make use of heavy structures like corduroy and jacquard-woven bouclé in wool, cotton, linen and viscose. ‘I am interested in all the qualities that have an origin in fashion like bouclé, tweed and corduroy. Because of the density that is needed for furniture in order to make it last in the long run, it becomes even more interesting I think,’ Simons explains of the new collection.

The job of the neighbourhood’s cafe went to London’s Rochelle Canteen, who have been serving up classic dishes from its much-loved menus, including radishes and cod’s roe, braised squid and roast quail. The cafe strikes a serene balance in comparison to the somewhat eery installation, with bistro style tables decorated with fresh flowers and gently lit from above by the factory’s skylight. Between the snacks and the atmosphere, spending a few hours during the hectic week feels like time well spent.

INFORMATION
‘No Man’s Land’ is on view 9-14 April. For more information, visit the Kvadrat Raf Simons website

ADDRESS

via Archemide 26

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The mild colours of Scandinavian summertime inspire the limited edition S/S19 collection from Bang & Olufsen, available from today. Featuring over-ear wireless headphones, active earphones, and a portable speaker, the collection also offers headphone accessories in Ria fabric by Kvadrat/Raf Simons.

The fabric – part of an ongoing collaboration between the Kvadrat and the Belgian designer – covers hand-held headphone pouches, and is typified by its mottled blending of colours, inspired by pointillism: an apropos reference, considering Bang & Olufsen's famously dotty speaker meshes (pictured top left). The Ria fabric unites three tones of yarn: a thin, single-toned thread base, through which two colours of thicker yarn are woven, to create a subtle graining across the surface.

As with pointillism, Ria's fragmented colours create a pleasing modulating effect, emulating the exploration of three-dimensional textures found across Kvadrat/Raf Simons collections. There's a certain roughness to Ria, that contrasts with the smoothness of the lambskin headphone covers.

Easy on the ears, each headphone in the collection is typically soft and comfortable, reflected in the new colourways, which are equally easy on the eye. They're also proudly Nordic. Clay – a deep, earthy tone, is inspired by chalky cliffs found across Scandinavia; a vegetal Pine colour evokes the forest, while Sky has a cool sense of breezy summer afternoons.

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Bang & Olufsen website

From collaborations with fashion designers to the reuse of end-of-life fabrics, there is not much Danish brand Kvadrat have not explored in the world of textiles. Outdoor fabrics are a surprising first though, and Kvadrat have left no stone unturned, creating something that is innovative to the core.

Launching at IMM Cologne (14-20 January), Patio is designed by Copenhagen-based weaver Karina Nielsen Rios with a burst of three colours. Staying true to the brand’s environmentally-conscious ethos, Patio is built using specially-developed Trevira CS yarn with enhanced UV stability. ‘We spent over three years searching for an alternative to the conventional top coatings,’ says Lea Nordström, technical manager at Kvadrat of the dynamic fluorocarbon-free finish they achieved.

Material innovation doesn’t stand in the way of quality though, as Kvadrat manage to create a soft touch in the textile while still maintaining its outdoor requirements: water-repellent and fast-drying. Writer: Sujata Burman.

See more highlights of IMM Cologne here

Though Copenhagen’s Danish National Gallery already warranted a visit, the addition of Kafeteria has given us even more reason to drop in. 

Partnering with chef Frederik Bille Brahe, the man behind the city’s beloved Atelier September, the design of the eatery has been influenced by Danish-Vietnamese artist Danh Vo, who happened to informally work on the project while he was based at the museum to prepare for an upcoming exhibition at The Guggenheim. 

As a result, the voluminous 19th-century architecture is dissolved by Isamu Noguchi’s Akari light sculptures, which flank the sides of the banquet-hall style dining room, Enzo Mari’s Do-It-Yourself tables and chairs, upholstery by Kvadrat, flooring by Dinesen, indoor plant clusters, and Danish designer Nanna Ditzel’s textiles, which add warmth to the space. 

Best-known for his ability to plate exceptional every day food, Bill Brahe has developed a simple organic menu with chef Jacob Kjær to feature staples such as soup, salad or cheeses, but delivering them with a quality that surpasses expectation.

INFORMATION
Website

ADDRESS

sølvgade 48-50

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The world of manufacturing has always been a hotbed for innovation and experimentation, often veering towards extremes, from the industrial revolution’s steampunk mess and hierarchical layouts, to modernism’s clinical tidiness and utopian dreams. In contrast, today’s factory is a much more elegant, informal and welcoming affair. Open and egalitarian, the 21st-century production facility promotes interaction and conviviality for its staff, but also invites the outside world in. Heralding a new architecture for the genre, here are three companies reinventing the way we approach, design and experience the modern making space.

Swarovski, Austria
Architects: Snøhetta

A busy, efficient factory can be an extraordinary thing to experience. More than a production facility, it can be a production in its own right; a choreographed dance between man and machine on constant repeat. This has never been more apparent than at Snøhetta’s extraordinary new building for Swarovski in Wattens. Here, high in the Austrian Alps, the manufacture of all the crystal conglomerate’s products will now be prominently on display in a vast, open space, which is more cultural destination than dark industrial park.

The Manufaktur building, which will officially open this spring, will include product showrooms, prototyping machinery and meeting spaces. Part of a €100m investment by Swarovski into a scheme to transform its manufacturing procedures and client relationships, it is one of three key new or revamped buildings. Campus 311, a former crystal-cutting factory, is being transformed into the new product development and innovation centre; while Focus Factory 2.0 is a new crystal-cutting centre that brings the entire production process under one roof.

With its sweeping central staircase, a Snøhetta hallmark, suspended floors and angular viewing platforms, the Manufaktur building has been designed in a way that will encourage its occupants to expand their view both literally and philosophically. Flooded with natural light, thanks to its innovative open-ceiling structure, and with expansive floors housing much of the machinery, the space is energising and elegant – a long way from the traditional industrial shop floor.

The vision, according to the Swarovski Group chairman Markus Langes-Swarovski, was to design the crystal workshop of the future. ‘The Manufaktur is a totally new typology,’ he says. ‘It’s a manufacturing facility, a showroom, a co-working space, a cathedral. Not because it’s a place of worship, but because when you’re in that building, it has a scale which I think creates a lot of humbleness in relation to the body, and yet, also, intimacy.’

The brief for the building, which is linked by a new footbridge to Campus 311, was to create a customer collaboration and co-creation centre that will see Swarovski’s clients, including major fashion houses, work directly with the product development teams. It fell naturally to long-time collaborator Snøhetta. The architecture practice, best known for the Oslo Opera House and Egypt’s Bibliotheca Alexandrina, also designed Swarovski’s Kristallwelten, a tourist destination that has become one of Austria’s most popular attractions since it opened in 1995.

Kjetil Trædal Thorsen, Snøhetta founding partner, is passionate about the new project’s potential. ‘It really is setting a new standard for inclusive fabrication facilities,’ he says. ‘Bringing clients, designers, artists, researchers, machine operators, technicians and the public under one roof is going to change how we think about these relationships in the future.’

The new facility will enable Swarovski to fast-track product development and collaboration with clients, allowing them to come up with product concepts and deliver them in a quarter of the time it would have taken in the past. ‘It’s a very holistic A-Z set-up, where people can see what happens in other departments,’ explains Langes-Swarovski. Considering it is a factory, it is indeed a surprisingly human-centric space. ‘We are not trying to use humans as machines. Machines can do that job much better now. So we wanted to build a context in which the human can become human again.’ The open design of the building will allow a ‘much higher hit rate for coincidences’, says Langes-Swarovski. ‘The architecture is forcing this kind of collaboration more than before. I’m really excited about what kind of things will happen in there.’

It is possible that in the not too distant future, the campus will become a stage for productions of an altogether different sort, engaging not just local but wider communities, too. ‘In keeping with gently opening up the company culture, we could think about opening it to the public 50 times per year,’ moots Langes-Swarovski. ‘Just with a small number of people – nothing dramatic.’ As we wait for his plans to crystallise, there’s no doubting Wattens is increasing its cultural clout.

Writer: Henrietta Thompson

Kvadrat, Denmark
Architects: SevilPeach

A small flock of Icelandic sheep gambol in a field, dodging artwork embedded in the turf. Hardly the view from most international HQs, but this is the seaside resort of Ebeltoft, Denmark, where Kvadrat has been based since 1968. The company operates from a 1980s Poulsen & Therkildsen-designed home, which has just been updated and extended by London-based architect firm SevilPeach to cope with a spectacular surge in sales – Kvadrat has tripled its revenue over the past seven years, and ships 14.4km of textiles each working day.

SevilPeach has created a visual link between a new showroom space and those staff working on Kvadrat’s future products. ‘We’ve knocked through the walls so that the new product development department has internal windows with vistas of the product,’ explains architect Sevil Peach. ‘It’s an emotional connection.’ In the main red-brick building, she and her team opened up the building to establish connections with the countryside. Desk-based staff are now in bright, airy rooms rather than small offices. And with the demolition of yet another wall, a former office was turned into a library, again with views of the landscape.

Peach has also unified the spaces by introducing swathes of colourful textiles, ‘almost like a coloured thread woven through the building’. Fabrics are used for their acoustic properties, draped on an extreme scale on three sides of the room and as 7m-tall doorways. ‘It’s about using textiles as an architectural intervention rather than just decorative,’ she adds.

Kvadrat’s 140 or so staff now have just over 12,000 sq m across the HQ. And as for the sheep, they have direct access to installations by landscape architect Günther Vogt, and artists Olafur Eliasson and Roman Signer. So everyone’s happy.

Writer: Clare Dowdy

Charlie Bigham’s, UK
Arhitects: Feilden Fowles

A typical location for a food processing plant is a vast out-of-town industrial estate, but for a company trying to stand out from the ready-meal crowd, an anonymous shed doesn’t cut the mustard. Which is why Charlie Bigham’s, which prides itself on preparing fresh ingredients by hand, took the audacious decision to bring in the architects and build a new home. The brand’s fish pies and chicken tikkas, marketed as the antidote to low-grade convenience food, are now made in a timber-clad, pitched-roofed, light-filled ‘kitchen’ courtesy of young London firm Feilden Fowles.

Charlie Bigham, who founded the business in his own kitchen in 1996, believes that the highest-quality food can only be produced in a high-quality working environment. But rather than extend his existing site on west London’s Park Royal Trading Estate, he has moved part of the business to a disused limestone quarry near his Somerset home. Here, Feilden Fowles’ £21m building has a backdrop of 50m-tall cliff walls of iron-rich stone, and shares the 18-acre site with peregrine falcons and great crested newts.

‘We wanted to get away from the standardised shed, which is low-ceilinged and windowless,’ explains project architect Elli Farrant. Instead, the firm turned to typical quarry vernacular, and found inspiration in Bernd and Hilla Becher’s iconic images of industrial buildings. Bigham wanted to foster a collaborative, non-hierarchical dynamic between the office and production staff. So Feilden Fowles set out to create a 6,500 sq m structure on a human scale and to make it as good a place to work as possible. Hence the asymmetric pitched roof line, with north-facing roof openings that let natural light into the building.

That structure means the ground-floor production facilities have 5m-high ceilings, a good 2m higher than those in standard sheds. Feilden Fowles’ involvement took the architects right on to the production floor, to make the flow of goods ‘as linear and efficient as possible’, with storage, cooking, assembling, chilling and dispatch all positioned in their logical order.

Instead of being located on the mezzanine, the open-plan office space overlooks the nearby quarry wall. That means suited staff are not peering down on to the shop floor through glass walls. Rather, the mezzanine houses a light-filled canteen, used by all. At the centre of the plan is the development kitchen, where Bigham concocts new recipes.

At the macro scale, the architects have considered the whole campus layout, grouping the buildings on the southern edge of the plot to leave the northern edge and its ecosystem in peace. The intention is to encourage yet more wildlife by eventually adding lagoons. Also on the drawing board are another two kitchens, a dispatch centre, visitors’ centre, pavilions in the landscape for the eventual 1,000 employees to take their lunch breaks, and a Bigham’s Academy.

‘To be a long-term business, you need to retain the best people, and to do that you need to create the best possible working environment,’ says Bigham. ‘For us, that’s about making a bit of a statement with our environment. And that means good architecture and a uniform you are proud to put on.’ Long-term for the founder means 20 years, a timescale he can work to, as the business owns the site. Gratifyingly, Feilden Fowles has also taken the long view. Hence the building’s rough-sawn Siberian larch timber exterior, which will take on a silver hue over time.

Writer: Clare Dowdy

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Swarovski website;
the Snøhetta website;
the SevilPeach website;
the Kvadrat website;
the Feilden Fowles website;
the Charlie Bigham website

It all started with a daybed. When the Harvard Graduate School of Design asked designer Jonathan Olivares to create a piece for Philip Johnson’s 1942 Thesis House in 2015, he teamed up with Danish textile brand Kvadrat to produce a daybed for the Cambridge, Massachusetts space. Inspired by New England mast makers, the daybed laid the groundwork for the duo’s latest collaboration: Twill Weave, which makes its debut at Salone del Mobile in Milan.

Available to the public and the trade, Twill Weave reimagines the daybed’s original textile — a wool-nylon twill weave that mimics the effect of carbon fibre, a key material for mast makers — in an expanded palette. ‘I wanted to create a group of colours that came from the earth’s crust,’ Olivares explains.

He conducted his research at the Harvard Art Museums’ Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, studying, photographing, and eventually using its collection of naturally occurring pigments as inspiration.

‘The collection was largely put together by the Fogg Museums’ second director Edward Waldo Forbes,’ says Narayan Khandekar, director of the centre. ‘We use our pigments for research, so when Jonathan said he wanted to use them for textiles, I knew it was something Forbes would’ve never expected.’

Olivares narrowed down approximately 2,500 pigments to 19 hues, ranging from azurite, to Indian lac, to gypsum rosette. ‘These colours stand for less human intervention and more specificity in the quality of colours we can demand,’ he adds.

Twill Weave marks Kvadrat’s first textile with an American designers, but CEO Anders Byriel insists Olivares brings a lot more to the table than international relations. ‘It doesn’t matter where he’s from, but what he brings,’ he says. ‘Jonathan is someone who’s interpreting the world and has a sense of where things are going,’ he explains. ‘He’ll be one of the designers who defines his generation.’

INFORMATION

For more information, visit Jonathan Olivare’s website and the Kvadrat website

With sustainability always high on the agenda at Milan Design Week, Danish textile titan Kvadrat has approached seven designers with a challenge: to create furniture from end-of-life textiles. In a new take on its 2017 exhibition which focused on works by Max Lamb, each designer’s offering explores the potential of Really’s upcycled solid fabric board.

Through inventive new work from Benjamin Hubert, Front, Jo Nagasaka, and Jonathan Olivares, alongside the three designers seen here – Christien Meindertsma, Claesson Koivisto Rune and Raw-Edges – the showcase investigates the changing landscape of textiles, and its move towards a circular economy.

In this film, we watch as the three designers take on mastering different aspects of the textile – from its versatile size to graphic qualities – answering Kvadrat’s question: ‘what possibilities open up when end-of-life becomes the start of a new life?’

18-22 April; Via Palermo 1; Writer: Elly Parsons

Leading the field in fabric design and innovation since 1968, Danish textile brand Kvadrat has opened a new 795 sq m HQ in Copenhagen, bringing its signature textile wares to the city’s northern harbour, an enclave of creativity and innovation. Designed by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec (who have also collaborated with Kvadrat on ranges including the ‘Clouds’ textile tiles and roller blinds), the concept for the outpost is centred on notions of materiality and exhibiting the genuine beauty of a fabric.

With whitewashed walls, concrete flooring and large textile canvases suspended from bespoke aluminium rails (a flexible way of transforming the showroom in a moment’s notice for clients, guests and architects seeking inspiration), the space feels like an art gallery at first sight. However, as textiles are applied to even the smallest details here – think FLOS lamps sitting on solid textile board storage cupboards by Really Copenhagen, crafted out of cotton and wool (typically downgraded in existing recycling processes) – the products shouldn’t be awe-inspiring pieces of art that cannot be touched; nor are they fixed entities as in a gallery. Rather, and as explained by Kvadrat, this is a working showroom or laboratory where visitors are immersed in the ongoing design process itself, encouraged to explore Kvadrat’s textile universe.

This fluid concept and move away from permanent or static showroom identities was achieved by playing with light, used by the Bouroullecs to highlight both movement and materiality. To create depth and connect the expanse with Kvadrat’s urban culture, different glass profiles, such as large glass windows and interior partitions like brick layering were introduced, complementing the industrial aesthetics of the interior and staying true to its Nordhavn roots.

A former storage space used by dockers, the showroom exemplifies durability, but is beautifully juxtaposed with Kvadrat’s drooping, softer fabrics. Believing that textiles encourage people to behave better by unveiling a more delicate side in each of us, Kvadrat and the Bouroullecs also demonstrate that in softness there is a quiet power.

Watch the making of the new Copenhagen Kvadrat showroom

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Kvadrat website

ADDRESS

Pakhus 48
Klubiensvej 22
2150 Nordhavn
Copenhagen

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Giulio Ridolfo’s relationship with Danish textile brand Kvadrat dates back to 2004. During which time the Italian designer – who has worked as a textile and colour advisor to some of the world’s leading fashion and design brands – has conjured some of the company’s most successful textiles. ‘His feeling and approach to colour is unique,’ commends Kvadrat CEO Anders Byriel. ‘Surprising colour combinations of yarns give every textile by his hand a three-dimensional and surprising depth.’

So, in honour of this fruitful 13-year collaboration, Kvadrat has invited 19 designers from around the world to create unique works using Ridolfo’s distinctive ‘Canvas’ upholstery textile. The brief was left open to interpretation and the results will be unveiled at an exhibition that will open next week at Somerset House, coinciding with the London Design Festival.

The exhibition marks the third instalment of the brand’s acclaimed Design Projects series – previous editions have seen creatives reinterpret Nanna Ditzel’s 1965 ‘Hallingdal’ fabric, and Finn Sködt’s 1984 ‘Divina’ fabric for exhibitions in 2012 and 2014 respectively.

‘“Canvas” stands out for its shimmering colour nuances, delicate contrasts and elegant structure,’ explains Kvadrat. ‘The new colour palette inspired by the painterly landscapes of Skagen, Denmark, comprises a variety of dark, light, cool and warm tones, reflecting the soft, Nordic pastel panoramas and dramatic, dark coastlines.’ One standout piece comes courtesy of Japanese designer Teruhiro Yanagihara, who has translated the fabric into a series of wall-mounted shelves. Wrapped around a semi-circular steel frame, the ‘Canvas’ material forms a solid shelf and a handy sling for storing books.

Strong seating propositions include Max Lipsey’s multicoloured ‘Woven Bench’, Tokyo-based YOY’s tactile trunk stools, and BCXSY’s timber frame bench, which is distinguished by its revolving rainbow-coloured seat made up of different variants of the ‘Canvas’ fabric. Maria Jeglinska, meanwhile, is presenting a series of large and small panels featuring the London-based designer’s distinctive graphic patterns. Hung from the ceiling, the panels connect together to form a contemporary room divider.

Other room dividers in the collection include Berlin-based Martha Schwindling’s ‘Tension at Work’, where lengths of Ridolfo’s fabric are stretched around frames like sails; and Kate Chung’s ‘Blossom in Between’ origami-like folding screens. A set of shaggy-haired dance costumes by New York designers Chen Chen & Kai Williams is one of the series’ more playful interpretations, as are Felipe Ribon’s piñata-inspired clay containers, and Butternutten AG’s cocooning den structures.

‘The “My Canvas” project, as a whole, displays kaleidoscopic creativity, reflecting the diversity of the group based on cultural vision,’ says designer Jeffrey Bernett, one of the project’s five curators. ‘It is a testament to what happens when you present talent with a provocative opportunity, a blank canvas.’

INFORMATION

‘My Canvas’ is on view from 18 – 24 September. For more information, visit the Somerset House website

ADDRESS

Somerset House
Strand
London WC2R 1LA

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This piece currently holds the Handmade record for taking the most time to create, and is unlikely to see it broken any time soon. When we originally approached designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec with an invitation to collaborate with legendary embroiderer Lesage Intérieurs for Handmade 2016, they gracefully declined. They argued that the standard four month timescale that we usually work to for Handmade projects was just not enough, bearing in mind not only their existing design commitments, but also the amount of time required to get to grips with the potential pitfalls of an unfamiliar craft.

But we’re not ones to take no for an answer, especially when we knew it would be such an exciting collaboration. So at last year’s Salone del Mobile, we persuaded them to meet with Lesage that June with the intention of working on a project for Handmade 2017. This would give them a clear ten months to complete the commission, a fortuitous move as the Bouroullecs’ piece would eventually take around 1,000 hours to embroider entirely by hand.

Lesage Intérieurs was set up in 1993 by Jean-François Lesage, a fourth-generation embroiderer and son of the celebrated haute couture embroiderer François Lesage. The company is dedicated to producing exquisite bespoke handiwork for interiors projects, and we had been looking for a way to bring a thoroughly contemporary point of view to a very traditional skill set. The Bouroullecs made the perfect partners.

We took the brothers to Lesage’s couture workshops in Paris, where some of the world’s most skilled artisans spend countless hours creating opulent embroidery for the likes of Christian Dior and Chanel. The visit was something of an eye opener for the Bouroullecs, who work mainly with industrial manufacturers such as Vitra, Kvadrat, Magis and Samsung. They now began to see embroidery more as a language and technique they could apply and adapt rather than as just a mere stylistic flourish or archaic symbol of luxury.

Still, the brothers had concerns, ‘a fear of being able to make something with a certain honesty and relevance to the contemporary world’, admits Erwan. And perhaps of misusing the skills made available to them – ‘like being with the world’s best piano player and asking him to play something too lightweight’.

They were determined, though, to bring a new energy and punch to the art. ‘We did not want to approach it just as a picture, something decorative.’ They had already been researching digital software coding for a client and wanted to see how they could make that work for this project. ‘Embroidery is a way to make pictures or something graphic, something that people recognise, like uniforms for the army, embedded with very clear codes or signs.’ Yet in an era of Smartphone photography, ‘people can’t read the embroidery – or they have lost the ability to read it’, so they found a solution where ‘software would act as a translator for an ancient technique, to speak the words of a contemporary picture’.

Taking inspiration from our holy theme, the project was named ‘The Veil’, and its execution took place in Lesage’s Vastrakala workshop in Chennai, India. To create their veil, the designers chose to use a fabric by Kvadrat, a company with whom they have a longstanding connection. Designed by Erik Ole Jørgensen in 1987, ‘Time 300’ is a yarn-dyed Trivera fabric, which uses a weaving process that employs two different shades – one in the weft and the other in the warp – to create a subtle two-tone effect. The fabric was stretched over a giant wooden loom, held in place with straps. This allowed more than ten men to work simultaneously on the cloth, which measured 6m x 3m. Oversized pixels, in the form of 7,200 custom-made frosted blue PVC paillettes in three sizes, were then hand-stitched in blue cotton mouliné, a task that involved 180,000 individual stitches from a team of 20, who clocked in more than 1,000 hours.

Traditionally, fabric is embroidered on one side only and lined at the back, but the Bouroullecs requested that the thread be beautifully finished on both sides, so that the piece could be viewed from all angles. Jean-François Lesage says this approach is extremely rare, comparing it to ‘having a back stage as clear as the main stage’. For Lesage, the challenge was ‘mostly to ensure a perfect positioning of each element to respect the architectural aspect of the décor’. He had expected a ‘culture shock’ between ‘the past and the present’, but he and his team found the experience to be positive, constructive and fruitful or, as he put it, ‘a nice encounter between poets’.

Erwan adds, ‘Embroidery is an amazing language, full of diverse expression and manner. In a way, it is like the origin of pixels, with each point making a part of the picture while also conveying its own weight and magic.’ As for the finished piece, the pair were very impressed that it was constructed using so few tools – just a piece of wood to stretch the fabric, a needle, thread, scissors, and hands. Amazingly simple!

As originally featured in the August 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*221)

Watch the making of ‘The Veil’ in Lesage Intérieurs’ workshops in Chennai

INFORMATION

For more information, visit Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s website, and the Lesage Intérieurs website

Kvadrat Soft Cells has revealed the renovated space for its division in Copenhagen, designed by London-based firm Caruso St John. Located in a historic warehouse in the city’s industrial Nordhavn harbour, the space will serve as a workshop location for the Kvadrat Soft Cells team to develop research, design work, prototyping and communications for the brand.

Caruso St John reduced the bright, lofty space down to its bare bones, removing all existing features to reveal a concrete base on which they built a system of shelves and sliding doors. Arranged over two floors, the space has been outfitted with large wooden panels to create divisions for offices and meeting rooms.

The architects explain that the only material addition to the interiors were sheets of spruce with an oiled surface, used to divide the loft into three separate areas (the foyer, atelier and workspace), but the idea is that these partitions can slide open to turn them into a larger space for events.

Caruso St John also took care of the custom-made furnishings, creating work surfaces in a special version of the wooden panels made of walnut. Soft Cells panels are displayed throughout the workshop, and additional furniture comes from iconic mid-century collections as well as contemporary brands.

The facility has been launched to take Kvadrat’s textile prowess to the next level, producing fully customisable high-performance acoustic panels, and combining the company’s original savoir faire with technological research. ‘The project is meant to provide a flexible background for Kvadrat Soft Cells to pursue its ambitious and ever evolving plans,’ says the architects. ‘We think, so far, it is working.’

INFORMATION

For more information, visit Soft Cells website

ADDRESS

Soft Cells
Orient Plads 1
2150 Nordhavn
Copenhagen

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‘The design community has always been progressive, pioneering,’ says Kvadrat CEO Anders Byriel. ‘I think we forget how much impact it has – creating the products we all use and our surroundings. It can change the world.’ With that mission in mind, Kvadrat is coming to Salone del Mobile with a new material it hopes will prove a breakthrough for sustainable design. The textile giant has partnered with Really, a Danish start-up producing Solid Textile Board – a material made using recycled ‘end-of-life’ fabrics, mostly cotton and wool. The board is a first in the industry, and Kvadrat and Really have enlisted designer Max Lamb to create a collection that expresses its potential.

Long passionate about sustainability and recycling, Byriel now heads up the company his father co-founded in 1968; and these passions inform his decisions. ‘At Kvadrat we have always been obsessed with sustainability, and our audience is into it, too,’ he says. ‘As a business, you need to be progressive, move out of your safety zone, move faster.’ At Kvadrat, the aim is to reduce environmental impact in terms of resources, production and distribution, and to balance quality, social responsibility and environmental concern. It was such concerns that first attracted Really co-founder Wickie Meier to Kvadrat. Meier, who has taught sustainability in fashion at Esmod Berlin since 2011, had launched Really in 2012 in collaboration with Klaus Samsøe, co-founder of fashion label Samsøe & Samsøe and a pioneer of Danish fashion and recycling. Their ambition was simple: to give new life to end-of-life textiles.

Samsøe had learned that in Denmark alone, 1,000 tonnes of textiles is thrown away each year and incinerated. This is mostly cotton waste from the hospitality industry, but also denim and wool. Samsøe and Meier started thinking about how they could do something more with the waste than simply recycle it in its textile form. They wanted it to work on an industrial scale and landed on the Solid Textile Board idea.

The process behind the Really boards is simple and the technology it employs is not new. Samsøe and Meier simply devised new ways to use it. The raw material comes from different sources: cotton from Danish industrial steam laundries and a large Italian fabric recycler, as well as leftover wool from Kvadrat. The textiles are granulated into smaller fibres and ‘airlaid’ using steam machinery – a process that binds the short fibres – then flat-pressed to become hard board. No water or dye is used in the process and each board is produced in a standard size with a white, dense core made of cotton fibres and top layers that can be achieved using cotton or wool. The boards are available in white, blue or slate, depending on the material used. At the moment, they are being produced in a converted barn in Ebeltoft, near Kvadrat HQ, but Meier and Samsøe insist that production could be adapted to any location in the world.

‘This is a really serious material,’ says Lamb. ‘These raw materials haven’t been put together in this way before. It has amazing potential and properties, and therefore implications within the industry.’ Both Meier and Byriel say Lamb was the natural choice to help launch Solid Textile Board. He has a history of radical thinking with raw materials, including a dissected tree (from his grandfather’s garden), which he turned into furniture with minimal interventions on the trunk, and a series of polystyrene chairs titled ‘Scrap Poly Pastel’. ‘Each material has its own set of possibilities,’ says Lamb. ‘My work is about trying to extract the best of a material, in the simplest way; it’s about how little I can do to it to achieve the most.’

Having been involved with Really on the development of Solid Textile Board for over a year, Lamb got to grips with its composition and potential; experimenting with it back at his London studio allowed him to understand what he calls ‘the material’s personality’. One important feature, he notes, is the nondirectional composition of the fibres, which renders the board more flexible than other examples on the market.

Lamb chose the bench as the ideal piece of furniture to explore the material’s versatility, and produced 12 different designs that investigate its full potential. ‘The bench is a medium that really shows off the board. And also a bench is to be sat upon, and I want many people to sit on it, and become physical and intimate with the material,’ he says. The designer also stresses that almost every inch of the material was used, but that the Really system allows any offcuts to be recycled and incorporated into new boards.

Each bench will make use of the board’s 3.1m length, and their shapes are achieved using a variety of techniques: Lamb layered boards or cut them and slotted the pieces into each other, shaped them using different CNC cutting techniques, bent them to exploit the flexibility of the material, applied V-cuts and folded them into boxes for extra stability.

‘We thought that Max could release the materiality of Really,’ says Byriel. Meier agrees: ‘His contribution is not about seeing the object, it’s about seeing the potential,’ she adds. For her, intelligent design is essential to convey Really’s sustainability message. ‘Design is communicating, it’s problemsolving, it brings interaction,’ says Meier. But in the long run, it also has to help us make things more sustainable. ‘Design is needed to bring sustainability to that convenience level that we need to achieve to get things moving.’

Curated by Jane Withers, the Milan presentation will be accompanied by a book edited by Christien Meindertsma, offering an in-depth look at Solid Textile Board and Really’s role in its development. The brand’s name is a result of the process, and of Meier and Samsøe’s incredulity at seeing the board become a reality. ‘We were looking for a name that sounded happy: when you work with sustainability everything can be very serious,’ explains Meier. ‘And then we realised we kept saying that word: “Is this really happening? Are we really doing this?”’ They did, Really.

INFORMATION

‘Really: Designing Materials for Circularity’ ran from 3 –9 April at ProjectB Gallery in Milan. For more information, visit the Kvadrat website and Max Lamb’s website

Everything Raf Simons touches turns cool. The Belgian-born fashion designer is a household name among interior designers and sneakerheads alike (not to mention the slim overlap of that sartorial Venn diagram), having collaborated and worked with brands like Adidas, Jil Sander, Christian Dior and Calvin Klein to create everything from footwear to haute couture.

Now, Simons, currently the chief creative officer of Calvin Klein, has just unveiled another collection – a line of textiles with Kvadrat. The set, which debuted earlier this week, marks Simons’ fourth collaboration with the European textile manufacturer.

Pointillism was source of creative stimulus for this collection. Taking cues from impressionist and post-impressionist masters such as Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and Vincent van Gogh, the designer plucked muted blues, yellows and pinks from the palettes of 19th century painters. Taking form as velour and mohair swaths, these colours were featured alongside Simons’ signature primary blues and reds, resulting in unexpected combinations.

'I was fascinated by how the colouration and weaving processes in fashion textiles don’t have the same limitations as those of furnishing textiles,' says Simons. 'Working with Kvadrat, we’ve been translating the subtle colouration and texture that you’d find perhaps in a tweed or bouclé into textiles suitable for use in furniture... with almost a painterly impact.'

For their global launch, Kvadrat upholstered Noguchi 'Freeform' sofas and ottomans, posing a stark contrast to their surrounding setting, inside the classical environs of the National Academy of Design in New York.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Kvadrat / Raf Simons website

When Raf Simons designed a furniture range with Kvadrat, the fashion world pricked up its ears. Simons repurposed some of the textiles in his own collections, but up until now, the Danish textile manufacturer had kept a tight lid on the fabrics.

But in Kvadrat’s Paris showroom, German leather goods label Tsatsas was watching with fascination. The brand’s founders, architect Esther Schulze-Tsatsas and the industrial designer Dimitrios Tsatsas,
 had been presenting their accessory collections in the showroom for several seasons, and were drawn towards ‘the textiles’ structures and their world of colour’.

They decided to venture out of their comfort zone. Having so far worked solely with natural leathers, Tsatsas approached Kvadrat with the idea of using the furniture textiles for a bag – and with success. They recall being ‘overjoyed that Kvadrat and Raf Simons agreed to our becoming the very first bag label world-wide to work with the collection’.

The limited collection of five versions in editions of 50, titled 'So_Far', reworks Tsatsas’ iconic 'Fluke' bag into five new versions, that combine cowhide linings with the Raf Simons-designed Kvadrat textiles, that proved exceptionally suited as a material for bags. Usually, Tsatsas explains, ‘a sturdy surface such as leather is needed if you consider a bag not as some short-lived seasonal article, but a long-standing companion. The Kvadrat textiles meet all the standards of the furniture industry, such as extreme abrasion-resistance.'

Simons had time to develop these fabrics, as opposed to the fast pace at which fashion collections have to be designed.

Tsatsas also believes time to be the most important element to their creative work.

‘For us, Raf Simons is one of the most striking contemporary designers’, they add. ‘Even if our own work differs in shape, the respective approaches are similar: the focus is on innovation in the form, proportions and structure.’

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Tsatsas website

Anglo-Indian design duo Doshi Levien is once again playing with the technical wares of Danish textile stalwarts Kvadrat. Launching at London Design Festival, the pair has created a first range of curtain fabrics, along with an immersive installation to celebrate this, titled ‘Pilotis’.

Made up of four fabrics, their inspirations for the contrasting collection are wide-reaching. The rough lines, graphics and dusty hues of 'Utopia' and 'Lake' stemmed from the mouldings of solid architectural surfaces like concrete and aluminium, while 'Rocket' and 'Fiction' take their light, perforated cues from science fiction and hi-tech fashion fabrics. Both alternating worlds open new gateways in curtain experimention; working with multiple choices, layering colours and textures to build an individual look that is both sculptural and contemporary.

These textile narratives are visualised via the 'Pilotis' that flow around the showroom as a maze of material. Much like the sweeping architectural contours of Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh that the pair often reference in the collection, the draping fabric’s curves and rushes of colour creates a theatrical and architectural city of their own in the East London space.

‘The machine-like texture of "Utopia" is combined with the smooth iridescence of "Lake",’ the design duo explains, ‘[and] the perforations of "Rocket" are layered with opaque "Fiction", together forming a naive and playful fabric Metropolis.’

INFORMATION

’Pilotis’ runs until 25 September. For more information, visit the London Design Festival website

ADDRESS

Kvadrat
10 Shepherdess Walk
London, N1 7LB

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Mixed-use café and co-working spaces may be old hat in places like London, Amsterdam or New York, but in buttoned-up Milan, they’re something of a rarer breed. Milanese cafes comprise mainly the typical Italian stand-up-and-sip variety and casual office space is few and far between, relegated to the up-and-coming but far-flung neighborhoods of Loreto or Lodi.

Just in time for the droves of designers and design devotees to descend on Salone del Mobile, enter Tenoha. The second location of Tokyo-based concept shop, café, event and co-working space is housed within a 2500 sq m 1930s-era ex-wallpaper factory in the canal-side Navigli neighborhood.

The simple but well-finished interiors — cherry wood banquette seating, Horigotatsu-style booths and a custom gridded lighting system — were designed by Milan-based Park Associati. Not keen on recreating verbatim the original Daikanyama location, Park Associati envisioned a space that channeled contemporary Tokyo of the Italian imagination. It was a novel idea that easily won over owner Hiroshi Sato for Tenoha’s first location abroad, allowing them some freedom to experiment with the design.

‘We wanted to create a space where Milan and Tokyo met halfway,’ explains Park Associati’s Michele Rossi. The visuals may reference the hip Daikanyama hangout, but materials are firmly rooted in Italian design. Shōji screens are lined with textiles by Milan-based Kvadrat and hexagonal kelp-green tiles by Botteganove clad the bar, echoing the deep teal and orange palette throughout.

A classic Milanese courtyard sits at the centre of the sprawling space: a good weather godsend with ample outdoor seating bordered by potted bamboo and cherry blossoms. On the Via Vigevano side, the shop stocks art gifts and homeware imported from Japan: find Toyo-Sasaki glassware, tokyobike cruisers and Kobeha Keikaku stationary. Its well-trafficked location benefits from tall windows that flood the space with both daylight and curious passersby.

In the café, a menu devised by Hideyuki Manaka of Tokyo’s Da Fiore offers unfussy dishes of Tonkatsu pork cutlets and udon noodles alongside more inventive plates like Caprese salad with tofu and yuzu Monkfish. Wine, of course, is Italian, but the cocktail list skews Japanese.

Behind a glass wall separating the restaurant from the co-working areas, a tiered wooden platform scattered with cushions caters to the flexible working habits of Tenoha’s freelancing demographic: a group who will surely come out in droves to welcome the latest addition to Milan’s growing wave of exciting new spots.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Tenoha website

ADDRESS

Via Vigevano 18
20144, Milan

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Colours are the foreplay of experimental design studio Rive Roshan, and during this latest edition of Northmodern, Copenhagen's foremost furniture fair, the London-based studio has created a suspended composition of textile and wood, titled 'Loom Bound'.

First seen at Salone del Mobile, the collection – created in partnership with Kvadrat – is a versatile system of simple materials, used in playful combinations to create endless modular and mobile set-ups. For its Danish debut, the installation has grown in size and offering.

Like a giant (but minimalist) version of snakes and ladders – the snakes replaced with large swathes of Kvadrat fabric – this play of colour and texture hung eight metres above the ground at the furniture fair's Architonic area.

Among the new additions are a desk with shelves, which can easily be entwined with any 'Loom Bound' screen, transforming it into a storage system; a high and low stool, designed to fit the organic and handmade cushions of Studio 180°; and a new modular tapestry, inspired and influenced by the cycles of nature and human life.

At floor level, a series of room partition screens interweave with Kvadrat Air backdrops, creating virtual walls. New and existing works intermingle in the central installation, while an archive section offers a 'behind the scenes' look into the duo's work. In another captivating play of colour and pattern, their 'Trichoric Tapestries’, designed for Paris' Musée des Arts Décoratifs last year, dances in the wind. Elsewhere, new kaleidoscopic lights, ceramics and glass pieces also made their official debuts.

Dutch designer Ruben de la Rive Box and Iranian-Australian design Golnar Roshan's animated interplay of texture and colour is nothing if not spirited.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit Rive Roshan's website

A pair that need no florid introduction, this year’s Wallpaper* Designer(s) of the Year, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, are yet again transmuting another everyday object in line with their elegant ethos. Teaming up with textile stalwarts Kvadrat for the new venture, they present their version of functional roller blinds.

Having previously created dynamic pieces using the Danish brand’s wares – including the interactive and playful ‘Textile Field’ installation, shown in 2011 at the V&A – the design sees the duo shift in a more modest industrial direction.  

The Parisian designers have here combined the technological know-how that shone in last year's Samsung Serif TV with the elegant 'Stratus', 'Nimbus' and 'Cumulus' fabrics they designed for the Danish textiles behemoth (and specially for the project).

‘We did a lot of research into the textiles and their relationship with light,’ the brothers explain. Controlled with either a minimalist remote control or a more classic stainless steel chain, the blinds variously absorb and reflect light to prevent glare, as well as providing thermal insulation.

When it comes to the design, the duo stay true to form: 'The roller blind was a typology we couldn’t challenge,’ Erwan says. ‘Ronan and I simply wanted to make a perfect construction.’ The result is meticulous; choosing anodised or powder coated aluminium for the cassette, together with the subtle hued materials, they present cleanly crafted frames in a variety of sizes.

Perfecting a traditional, day-to-day form imbued with a little poetic Bouroullec magic, they describe the final product as being 'refined like a Swiss watch’.

INFORMATION

The Bouroullec-designed roller blinds will be exclusively available in Germany, Benelux and Denmark for contract use

The Valencia-based studio Masquespacio have unveiled their debut collection for Spanish furniture and upholstery brand Missana. 

Inspired by the Memphis movement of the 1980s (and more specifically Michael Graves' graphic architecture,) the 'Toadstool' collection is as bright as it is bold. Small, yet perfectly formed, it features rounded shapes and a range of colourful fabrics for its two seater sofa, table and series of poufs.

Postmodernist hues of forest and mint green, salmon pink and deep navy prove a bold foil to the other materials in use: the marble, wood or gold plated metal pedestals.

'This [collection] represents very clearly what Masquespacio’s work is,' says co-founder Christophe Penasse. '[We are] inspired by the visual culture and by the fact that graphic design is always present in one way or another.'

Missana’s upholstery technique is clear to see, too. Each piece of furniture designed by Ana Milena Hernández Palacios and Penasse uses Raf Simons' fabrics for Kvadrat, Wallpaper* Design Awards 2015's winner of the Best Alliance gong, and is meticulously assembled by Missana's experts. Best of all, though, is the number of combinations available, mixing pedestal materials and fabric hues endlessly for an equally pleasing and personal medley.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit Masquespacio's website

Photography: Cualiti

Hidden at an off-motorway site in Ørestad, south of Copenhagen's city centre, the city's Bella Centre was home to a celebration of Scandinavian design during last week's Northmodern fair. The airport-hotel area is currently transforming into its own cultural hub, and the design fair is part of this hopeful resurgence. The centre itself – attached to an impressive tooth-patterned twin tower hotel structure by 3XN Architects – housed an array of Nordic minimalism at its finest.

Upon entering the conference centre, we were greeted by 'Icons,' a hand-picked selection of pieces that reiterated the show's theme of Danish modernism. Included was the Fritz Hansen installation '7 Cool Architects', which saw Arne Jacobsen's classic Series 7 chair re-designed by seven architects. Alongside this was the experimental and fully Danish 'Keystone' by Os & Oos, newly upholstered in Kvadrat fabric for Scandinavian distributors Please Wait to be Seated.

This is the fair's second time running as Northmodern (it was previously named Design Trade). To mark this move to play down the purely commercial aspects of the show, the organisers have created a new furniture-specific section called 'Room'. From the range of note-worthy new releases, Ferm Living presented their first segue into larger furniture with a collection inspired by graphic lines. Introducing a two-toned sofa and daybed, the Danish brand maintained their geometrical style with a contrast theme of dark navy and grey lines. Muuto were also celebrating inaugural releases at the fair, launching their first pouf, designed by the Norwegian duo Anderssen and Voll. Its hexagonal shape was immersed in a pastel-hued set up alongside a new selection of sleek, similarly-toned pendant lights by Swedish architectural studio TAF.

Elsewhere, Danish-Californian brand Hey There Hi – who launched last autumn with minimalist lighting – has now branched out into furniture. Founded by Danish lamp maker Jacob Faust, LA-based graphic designer Camilla Hjerl and ceramicist Birgitte Dark Winther, the trio takes pride in a style that straddles art, design and their West Coast-meets-Nordic influence. For A/W 2015, clean shelving and textured ceramic vases were on display in their organic stand, adorned with Faust's gold plated pendants, foliage and contemporary artworks.

A selection of standout newcomers were also in the mix, including Danish kitchen brand Reform and its range of IKEA cabinetry recreated by different starchitects. New on the block was SixtenErfurt – the collaborative effort of Copenhagen-based Kasper Sixten and Frederik Erfurt, presenting their inaugural handmade collection, 'A New Unity'. Boasting an eloquent Nordic style, our favourite piece was the 'Moon' lounge chair, resplendent in dyed electric blue leather with a refined powder coated steel frame.

Finally, one of our very own Wallpaper* Handmade projects made its way to the fair – the 'Spring' scissors by Lex Pott and Nomess Copenhagen were included in an interactive experience, displaying the many ways they can be used. These were on show in the 'Gallery'; an area of the fair set aside for newer talents and special exhibitions, housed in a tranquil greenhouse – a momentary source of bucolic solace among the modern design vibes.

Ever restless, Wallpaper* Handmade upped its perfectly proportioned sticks again this year, installing itself (well, we helped) in a semi-retired stretch of Milanese store fronts to create the Wallpaper* Arcade. We were determined that this year's Handmade event be the biggest, best and most bountiful yet. And so it was; not least our opening bash, now well established as Salone's swingingest party.

This year we were joined by Tom Dixon, Patricia Urquiola, Konstantin Grcic, Philippe Malouin, Maurizio Cattelan and many other luminaries who enjoyed the more interactive elements of this year's exhibition: including the Wallpaper* nail bar; live hair styling by the legendary Jimo Salako; and the remarkable 'Rotunda Seronita' snack bar, dispensing not only savoury treats but their own handmade cherry wood trays.

Of course, such scale and ambition does not come easy and we again have to thank the many friends, old and new, who provided invaluable assistance and supplies. The champagne flowed freely thanks to Veuve Clicquot, whose Re-creation Awards installation of re-imagined mail boxes proved a particular favourite, while Royal Salute served wonderful whisky at their remarkable 'Neolithic' bar, designed by Studio Mackereth and crafted by Jack Badger. The highest-grade grappa came courtesy of Nonino (try saying that after a few glasses) whilst beer was supplied by San Miguel (summer in a bottle as far we're concerned).

Given this year's culinary theme, the catering had to impress and we served up a monumental stretch of Italian favourites, including generous dollops of organic panettone gelato from local favourites, Grom. We also flew in St John sous chef Arnold Hoeksma who cooked up bone marrow pizza at the Emeco space while the young craftsmen Josh Fisher bent, beat and shaped metal into unique editions of Jasper Morrison's 'Alfi' chair.

The Wallpaper* Arcade – a collaborative effort in the best tradition of Handmade – was brightened by Kvadrat's spectacular multi-colour colonnade as well as the multidisciplinary delights of d3 Dubai Design District; the contemporary crafted carpets of AfghanMade; and Gufram's prickly pop-up lounge.

Finally, a huge thank you to the event sponsors, Veuve Clicquot, Hästens and Monoqi Business, and, of course, Leclettico's Claudio Loria, whose ambition and drive matches our own.

Studio Wieki Somers and Kvadrat took up residence at Alexander McQueen's Milan boutique during Salone del Mobile with a mystical installation. 

Titled 'Blossom Rain', it was inspired by McQueen's Spring/Summer 2015 collection and featured three geisha warriors holding a series of lamps against a bloom-like, hazy backdrop of laser cut Kvadrat textiles.

Along with the compelling window dressings, the Via Verri home of McQueen also played host to the magic realism of Studio Wieki Somers, including their famous 'Mitate' and 'Frozen in Time' pieces, as well as more recent works like 'Time Flies', 'Sprout' and 'Magic Mirror'.

Comprising Wieki Somers and Dylan van den Berg, the Rotterdam-based design duo is known for its whimsical designs, always anchored in history, immaculately engineered and with a natural way of introducing a touch of fantasy to the otherwise mundane. Paired with the distinctive garments of the famous fashion house, the effect was overall quixotic.

To celebrate the partnership, the Wallpaper* team hosted a party, inviting some of the most fashionable guests of Salone del Mobile to wander around the Milanese boutique and take in the sights, along with a glass or two champagne. 

In China even the design world moves at hyper-speed.  Last year's inaugural Design Shanghai exhibition was largely dominated by a wide range of international brands, with just 9 local designers. This year, an increase in big-hitting names like Magis and Vitra was matched by 30 young Chinese designers keen to play their part in China's design (r)evolution.

Leading the local pack was Shanghai architectural studio neri&hu with their elegantly understated light for Parachilna which debuted in Shanghai before its upcoming Milan outing. Also on show was the award-winning design duo's contemporary take on the traditional sedan chair for Classicon.

Back again with a much larger space than last year was The Beast founder Amber Xiang with a fantasy forest-in-the-city concept cafe.  The Shanghai-based designer used 500 purple magnolia trees, 200 sakura and 300 willows to create the intriguing urban oasis.

First-time exhibitors included ipluso. Its collection of lifestyle accessories include the ipluso '4 eyes' range of minimalist reading glasses, ergonomically designed to suit the local fashion-conscious market.

Chinese artist Wang Yuyang added his own take on a Modernist architectural icon. Using binary code and 3-D image generation he transformed the precise dimensions of Jean Prouvé's iconic 6x9 'Demountable House' (on show at the entrance to the fair), into a decidedly industrial-esque sculpture of copper, wood, steel and plastic.

A powerful cross-cultural creative combination was also at play at Design MVW, which showcased a standout series of geometric furniture in bronze, including a striking desk and Art Deco-inspired lighting.

Strong showings also included David Gill Galleries, with a collection of curvaceous tables. A highlight was the outstanding 'Calla' fireplace in Negro Marquina marble designed by Zaha Hadid for Citco.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong-based rug designers and painters Brad Davis and Janis Provisor of Fort Street Studio brought their trademark painterly touch to a series of contemporary rugs including the standout hand-knotted wild silk 'Border' rug.

Craftsmanship was a strong theme at this year's event.  Among the best were a walnut 'Malt Vault' whiskey travel case hand-made by Scotland's Method Studio, British designer Alun Heslop's limited edition 'Dragon Kre' sculptural chair in foundry cast bronze and Shanghai-based design studio Grado's origami-inspired chair. Gallery ALL presented a strong collection of furniture that included Zhoujie Zhang's angular gold dining chair and covetable steel furniture pieces that 'fold' up for easy removal by Naihan Li.

One of the most popular spots for the ubiquitous exhibition 'selfie' was in front of Fredrikson Stallard's 4-meter-wide 'Prologue' installation created for Swarovski. Made from galvanized steel and 8,000 blue crystals, it nodded to the Austrian company's Yangtze River Basin Waterschool charity programme.

The true mark of the fair's success, however, came towards the end of the first day when reports emerged of enterprising touts successfully selling entrance tickets on the street outside the fair.

'The energy for Design Shanghai went to another level compared to last year, but when a country is deprived of design for a long time, it is natural that people both young and old are interested in trying to learn more.  They are curious to see and experience them in person,' observed neri&hu's Lyndon Neri.

'When a country is deprived of design for a long time, it is natural that people both young and old are interested in trying to learn more,' says neri & hu's Lyndon Neri.