office for furniture design, Kassel / Hesse, founded 1992

 

Design is observation, communication, environment, culture –but “not art”. Christian Lepper, Roland Schmidt and Uwe Sommerlade, three designers who studied in Kassel and have been running an office there for the past one-and-a-half decades, see themselves as mediators. The busy trio specializes in furniture, interior design and exhibitions. What they all have in common is their training as cabinetmakers. They view open lines of communication with clients as one of the key conditions forsuccessful design. This maxim has allowed them to build an impressive list of references, including major German manufacturers like Brunner, Kusch + Co, Rosenthal Einrichtung and Thonet, along with Italian firms such as Rossin and Tonon, and US furniture-maker Haworth. The design studio based in nort h e rn Hesse designed the model A 1700 for neighbour Thonet, a cleverly conceived table system without apron in which the skilfully set legs can be quickly released and attached again. They had already attracted attention with two additional tables: Faldo (for Kusch + Co) and Sleight (for Brunner). The trio is not interested solely in formally coherent ideas. Design for them is instead a question of deep-going development work. They hold several patents for these kinds of technical diving expeditions. It thus comes as no surprise that they have also been successful at inventing new sitting machines. But there is nothing apparatus-like about their S-con (for art collection) and Drive (for Brunner) swivelling office chairs. Their elegant look is meant to upgrade the otherwise drab workplace. Now, the table and chair experts have also tried their hand at a further field of endeavour. “LSS” conceived a specialhanging lamp called Phil for client Klein & Co. in which the two transparent sides of the champagne-cooler-sized shade are placed two centimetres apart to leave the customer plenty of room to exercise his own creativity.