John Arndt and Wonhee Jeong, the creative team behind
studio_Gorm, met at the Design Academy Eindhoven where both of them were getting their Master’s Degree.
With the Salon de Mobile in Milan in the back of their heads, they joined forces and set up their design
studio in Rotterdam in the beginning of 2007. Busy ever since, the duo was just invited to showcase
several prototypes of products that they are currently working on at Design Within Reach, a retail chain
in the US that specializes on designer furniture and accessories. Both Arndt and Jeong will start teaching
at the product design department of the University of Oregon this coming fall.
INMYX:
What was the main motive behind joining forces?
It was really as simple as the
fact that we have been partners in a relationship since we were in school (now married), and that we
respected each other’s work and wanted to collaborate.
INMYX:
You both have backgrounds as sculptors. How much does that influence your work as designers, especially
nowadays when everything seems to be generated on the screen?
Having sculpture
backgrounds definitely affects our work. We both like to work with our hands and explore material properties.
While we do some work on the computer, most of our work involves lots of model-making and material experiments.
Computer modeling is a great tool, but it is just one of many used in a design process. A lot of our
best ideas happen while problem-solving how to build something, looking for the right material, or figuring
out small details. I think these really great elements are what can get lost in a virtual environment
where anything is possible.
INMYX: How does a typical ideation
process start? Let's say, what was the initial idea behind the "flying" lamp? Where do you
take your inspiration from?
We actually have very different working methods and
ideas, so in a way we work on separate projects, but help each other to develop them. The flying light,
for example, was an idea of Wonhee's. She was influenced by Olafur Eliasson's flying fan, Ventilator,
and thought it would be a great idea for a lamp. Wonhee built the first one and then I helped refine
some of the details. As it developed further, she sourced the materials and figured out the electrical
components in Korea and I built them in Holland.
Link:
www.studiogorm.com
