Work

Mats Broberg and Johan Ridderstråle (brda.se), the brains behind savvy designs such as the grill and lounge series from Röshults and the Tati series from Asplund visited holm° in May for a longer chat about their work as well as the future of their guild.

H°: What is important to you when you consider co-operations with producers?

B&R: We like to work with smaller companies, where the goal of a co-operation often is long term. In that way, you get to know each other well and will inevitably design even better products for that company and you know that the company will market the product in a way that corresponds to your ideas. Often you also end up being able to work more freely and artistically due to the trust you’ve built up together. Our work with companies like Asplund, Klong and Röshults is characterized by this way of collaborating.

H°: What is important to you when you develop a design?

B&R: It’s very important for us that our designs are just as well suited for a 100-year old building, as for brand new architecture. Factors like environmentally friendly and socially responsible production are key to the work. In regard to new technologies, we prefer to try to find an unexpected use of it. For example, the LED technology sparked a surge in developing more lamps - thin lamps - but maybe there are other areas of usage for this technology. Further, if you look at 3D printing, we don’t believe that it will erase production as we know it, but it can help in the production process, since it for example can produce moulds more quickly.

H°: How would you like to work in the future?

B&R: We’d like to continue working in both architecture and design. The work we do in interior architecture increases our understanding of product design and vice versa. We’d also like to continue working for different companies, in order to keep widening our knowledge in areas new to us - knowledge, which in turn our clients benefit from. However, we’d like to spend more time on the production floor. Product design is very much a tangible process, which requires close cooperation with the people making the product, in order to ensure that a product turns out the way it was intended to be.

H°: How do you look upon the last 10 years’ upswing of Scandinavian design and design companies?

B&R: This development is of course great and has led to local companies and designers more easily finding new assignments as well as international clients. However, it has also led to companies developing many similar products and loosing their identity on the way - this trend, however, is basically only pursued by trading companies, not producing ones. The market will not have space for all of these, but companies working with a long-term strategy, producing with longevity and society in mind will survive.

H°: Which responsibility does a designer carry in this process?

B&R: When you have reached a certain position as a designer, you can decide not to work for certain companies, which might carry products that are «very inspired by» classics or younger best-sellers and you can ensure that your design for a company clearly matches that specific company’s identity and not the latest design you did for another client. And of course, what we mentioned before: close co-operation with your client.

H°: Will you name one of your products, which you believe has the potential of becoming a future classic?

B&R: The Tati series for Asplund has found a market all over the world already. That could be a good indicator for a future classic.

H°: Thank you very much for an interesting discussion.