Here, we ask designers to take a selfie and give us an inside look at their life.
Age: 28
Occupation: Creative director of Ocrùm
Instagram: @ocrum_studios
Hometown: Beijing
Studio location: Brooklyn
Describe what you make: I create furniture, lighting, and everyday objects large and small that use both classic and innovative materials with careful thought. I make installation art too.
The most important thing you’ve designed to date: A teapot called The Dew and a floor lamp called Flouu. The Dew was my first complete design work in college—it examines the interaction between user and object. It received Red Dot Design Award “Best of Best” in 2014, which encouraged me to keep moving forward. Flouu was my last project in college, and has been exhibited at Salone del Mobile Milano and Art Basel in Miami Beach. I experimented with blown glass—the beauty of transparent glass has always attracted me! This experience gave me the confidence to bring blown glass pieces to Ocrùm’s new collection. Many things in life are related!
Describe the problem your work solves: I want to explore different ways of designing an object. It’s much like doing sculpture—you make a perfect piece by thinking and crafting, then it becomes more of an art piece than a commercial product. My goal is to create empathetic pieces that people enjoy using. By catching the “click moment” of someone’s life, the object can become both valuable and long-lasting.
Describe the project you are working on now: Launching Ocrùm—a Brooklyn design brand that creates furniture, lighting, and decorative objects—with Luca Zeffiro. As the creative director, I mainly focus on concept development and building the brand identity from scratch.
A new or forthcoming project we should know about: We’re launching our first collection at the Architectural Digest Design Show on March 21!
What you absolutely must have in your studio: Books, fruit, and the restroom.
What you do when you’re not working: Saltwater fishing in the summer, museum and art exhibitions in winter, traveling, and cooking.
Sources of creative envy: Gio Ponti, Naoto Fukasawa, and cuisine from around the world.
The distraction you want to eliminate: Too much light in the city at night.
Concrete or marble? Both.
High-rise or townhouse? Townhouse! Easy to move-in, move-out for newly made prototypes.
Remember or forget? Remember, but sometimes “forget to remember.”
Aliens or ghosts? Aliens.
Dark or light? Light.
