Interviews

Architectural structures, empty spaces, abstract fragments: The photographs by Satijn Panyigay show a state between presence and absence, full of calm and tension, melancholy and hope. In our interview, she tells us what she’s looking for.

Sonia Bąk-Tokarska and Michał Tokarski founded Studio Tok four years ago. In addition to their surname, "Tok" also stands for ways of thinking, and thought processes in the Polish language. In this interview, they talk about the role that painting played in their childhood and what a lamp has to do with a sumo wrestler.

Daniel Rybakken's approach has been honoured early on with many awards. We spoke to the designer about how chairs are like human bodies, the relationship between art and design and what his father taught him about cars.

Prof Sebastian Oschatz led the "Flx Tech+ Waste/4" course at the HfG Offenbach together with Prof Janina Schmidt and Carina Moser in the summer semester 2024. In this short interview, he describes how the project uses digital and interaction design to benefit agriculture.

Studio Loes became known beyond Berlin for "Element", a modular timber building. Their love of wood is apparent in many of their designs. In the following interview Gonzalo Lizama tells us how the three founding members got together and what characterizes their work.

Prof. Ferdinand Ludwig is an architect and holds the Chair of Green Technologies in Landscape Architecture at Technische Universität München (TUM); he is also a partner at OLA Office for Living Architecture. In this interview, he talks to us about the uses of Baubotanik in the city of tomorrow.

The Populus Hotel in Denver is due to open soon and offers a clear contrast to the skyline of Colorado's capital: a conversation with Juliane Wolf, Design Principal and Partner at Studio Gang, about trees as inspiration, hotels to revitalise the city centre and windows that can be lived in.

Petra Blaisse has just published a comprehensive book called "Art Applied", looking back on 33 years of practice since she founded her studio "Inside Outside" in 1991. We had a quite personal conversation about her view of design – or, as she prefers, "applied work".

In the form of “Bellhop Glass” for Flos, Barber Osgerby have expanded the “Bellhop" Collection to include pendular luminaires and table lamps made of hand-blown opaline glass and aluminum. Edward Barber explains the idea to us.

Industrial designer Marc Gerber lives in Bern and designs products for which he likes to think outside the box. He talks to us about what he aims to change with his designs, the ways of working he learnt from Konstantin Grcic, and what he is currently chiseling away at.

Lukas Heintschel designs furniture that combines conceptual approaches with practical development anchored in industrial design. Despite their high functional requirements, they should be pleasant and fun to use. In this interview, he gives us an insight into his approach.

Björn Dahlström has expanded the “Velit” collection for Plank with a lounge chair and a side table. In this interview, he tells us why the design of the frame crafted from artfully bent metal wire is something special.

In the form of the Laufen Forum near Basel, architecture practice Snøhetta has created a new brand experience for bathroom manufacturer Laufen that goes far beyond simply presenting of its products. Architect Patrick Lüth, Managing Director and partner at Snøhetta in Innsbruck, describes the project to us in this interview.

Architect Georg Döring BDA in an interview on the conversion of a former department stores' for use as the city history museum of Cologne.

In this interview, we talk to Eva Rucki and Conny Freyer about their art collective Troika, which they run with Sebastien Noel from London, the multi-layered forms of non-human intelligence and their exhibition at the MAK Vienna.

The interdisciplinary design studio Bitsch was founded in 2021 by Arthur Bitsch in Strasbourg, France. This year he exhibited at Milan’s SaloneSatellite. In the following interview he explains his concept to us.

Social housing is not exactly a topic that makes architects jump for joy. The life's work of Polish-French architect Iwona Buczkowska, born in 1953, who has created a rich portfolio of extraordinary residential and educational buildings in France since the mid-1970s, shows that things used to be different. She was recently honoured with the Jane Drew Prize for her work.

With "Catifa Carta", Arper is introducing a groundbreaking new material to the market that is manufactured from a by-product of wood and goes by the name of PaperShell. Andrea Mulloni, Head of Sustainability at Arper, explains to us the great potential of the newly developed material.

What does an armchair sound like? The new furniture label Bottone presented its debut collection this year at the Salone del Mobile in Milan. We met co-founder Daniele Luciano Ferrazzano for an interview in Berlin.

With "AXOR Citterio C", Antonio Citterio has designed a minimalist basin mixer that is a statement in terms of function, feel and aesthetics – and increases comfort in small bathrooms in particular. We met the architect and designer in Milan for an interview.

In 2013, Moritz Böttcher and Nikolaus Kayser started to run their design studio together in Berlin. Since then, they designing as Böttcher & Kayser consumer goods, furniture and luminaires, both themselves and for international clients from Ligne Roset to Stelton.

Together with Wagner Living, architect and designer Hadi Teherani has created the ergonomic "W3D" stool, the body of which is made from recyclable bio-plastic using a 3D printing process in the #wagnerdesignlab. The matching tables will be presented at Milan Design Week. He tells us what the collaboration is about in an interview.

Carlotta de Bevilacqua is an architect, designer, professor and President and CEO of Artemide and Danese Milano. We recently met her for an interview and talked about the latest collections and her vision for Artemide.

Curator Jane Withers explains in an interview how she aims to change our awareness of this resource with the exhibition ‘Water Pressure – Design for the Future’.

Sarah Behrens and Ina Westheiden from The Baukunst Dynamites in Stuttgart see their office as an architecture label that operates at the interface of art and architecture. Their "Doppelgänger reloaded" project, for which they designed an extension for the home of an art foundation, provides a good illustration of the approach.

Ever since 2018, with their design studio “anima ona” Freia Achenbach and June Fàbregas have focused on further developing previously untapped resources such as construction waste. The latter, if processed into geopolymers, offers a sustainable alternative to concrete. In the following interview they tell us more about their research.

Sam Lombardo recently completed his studies at écal – his graduation project is "The table of the future", which can also be used as a stovetop. In this interview, he tells us how his idea differs from those of established manufacturers.

Markus Frenzl is Professor for Design and Media Theory at the Faculty of Design at the Munich University of Applied Sciences (MUAS). Parallel to this he conducts research into design and innovation cultures as part of the Hightech Agenda Bavaria (HTA). A key component of his additional research professorship is the founding of the design cultures institute for applied design research (dci). He presented the ideas in an interview with us.

Prof. Dirk Hebel is Professor of Sustainable Construction and the Dean of the Department of Architecture at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). In the following interview he reveals what he thinks construction must be like to be viable in the future.

Are internationally practising architecture offices already working with the tools of artificial intelligence? And if so, which benefits do they perceive? We asked for answers at AMDL CIRCLE, gmp Architekten, MVRDV NEXT and Norm Architects.

English designer Chris Martin is co-founder and chief designer of the Stockholm-based furniture company Massproductions. Together with Magnus Elebäck, he develops high-quality designs that are produced in series and shows that mass production is not exclusively negative.

The WINT Design Lab develops sustainable futures. Based at Tegel Airport in Berlin, on the basis of practical work, the team explores holistic design strategies, new hybrid tools, and generating interdisciplinary knowledge. In the following interview they tell us what they are currently working on.

Kerstin Pfleger and Peter Paulhart founded Studio RE.D in Vienna in 2022, with their own experimental workshop and office. We spoke to the two to find out what moves, inspires, motivates them and what they expect from the future.

Architects can turn to the Revalu platform, which offers data on materials, when undertaking a lifecycle analysis of their project, as it enables them to compare the environmental impact of different construction materials. Kika Brockstedt, co-founder & CEO of Revalu Impact AG, talks to us and explains the idea.

Danny Richman is an AI consultant and developer of FabricGenie, the AI-based design app. In an interview, he explains the function of generative artificial intelligence and highlights the technology’s opportunities and risks.