Designer of the Day: Pelle

Here, we ask designers to take a selfie and give us an inside look at their life.

Age: 42 (Jean). 43 (Oliver). 

Occupation: Lighting and furniture designers.

Instagram: @pelle______

Hometown: Los Angeles (Jean). Dortmund, Germany (Oliver).

Studio location: Flatiron, Manhattan.

Describe what you make: We design and make lighting, furniture, and whatever else triggers our interest. Our work is sculptural, sometimes decorative or even minimal, and everything in between. We live for the juxtaposition of it all.

The most important thing you’ve designed to date: A major cornerstone of our studio’s work is the Bubble Chandelier Collection. It dates back to 2008 and has evolved ever since. We return to it again and again to keep adding new ideas to it, like hand-painted motifs or abstracted patterns onto the glass. 

Describe the problem your work solves: We create objects that hold personal meaning for us and hope people connect to our work in the same way. Maybe that’s more a statement of intent, but we believe in the importance of physical things and the human relationship to those things. While everything continues to become more and more ephemeral and digital, we are romantics at heart and believe in making things. Sometimes it seems like people don’t believe in that anymore.

Describe the project you are working on now: It’s quite busy right now in the studio as we wrap up the entire lighting package for our very first house commission. For this project, we’re fitting out almost every room in a private residence with lighting pieces either from our existing collection or something entirely new and custom for the space.

A new or forthcoming project we should know about: We just launched the Nana Lure, a banana leaf–like lamp made of painted cast-cotton paper. We’re continuing the material exploration of cast-cotton paper even more this year. It has been so much fun developing the Lure collection with this material for the past four years and we’re still so full of excitement for it! We’re doing more color and formal studies and will continue to develop new LED integration. We love the idea of using this material that we can fully shape in our studio by hand and from scratch. Look for the new Nana Lure versions coming out later this year.

What you absolutely must have in your studio: Calming essential oils on my wrists and color pencils (Jean). Coffee and the occasional isolation with electronic music over my headphones when I need to get something done (Oliver). 

What you do when you’re not working: We spend pretty much all our time out of the studio with our two kids. We rediscover the wonder and weirdness of childhood through their eyes.

Sources of creative envy: Martin Puryear, Paavo Tynell, Louise Bourgeois, Dries Van Noten, Vincenzo de Cotiis, Frank Lloyd Wright, Olafur Eliasson, and some others who are very original, prolific, and frankly, just do what they want to do (Jean). I am drawn to the mythical act of creativity. Creating physical things is still one of the most meaningful activities to me. The genius of some to do work that simply exists so clearly and unapologetically is something I strive for. To me, it’s present in examples like “Merzbau” by Kurst Schwitters or the Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe (Oliver).

The distraction you want to eliminate: Online searches for places to vacation or travel (Jean). Treasure hunt TV shows (Oliver). 

Concrete or marble? The architect in me loves concrete and the product designer in me loves marble (Jean). Concrete. I love the smell of fresh concrete (Oliver). 

High-rise or townhouse? Townhouse, but I could also live in a high-rise (Jean). If I can make it my own, it does not matter (Oliver). 

Remember or forget? I tend to remember, for better or worse (Jean). Forget. Always (Oliver). 

Aliens or ghosts? Both movies were great (Jean). Ghosts. When I was a kid, I had some books on the paranormal. Just seemed to be too cool (Oliver). 

Dark or light? Chiaroscuro (Jean). Without Darkness, there is no Light (Oliver).