Imaginary Office: Christmas Cake

(jiří macek) At the Greenhouse section of Design Week in Stockholm, the Imaginary Office studio presented a wonderfully twisted sofa, a twinkling light, and a stool that might as well serve as a homage to Jiří Pelcl. Thus, the studio has set the world on fire with its first collection. After all, they have a very nice story to accompany it…

Three brothers, one company, and a desire to experiment with new ideas create the background of Imaginary Office, which was founded by architect and designer Daniel Hedner last year. His brother Jesper found design by an indirect route - he immersed himself in photography and film at first and even moved to New York at one point to pursue his studies. Apart from the above-mentioned disciplines, he currently focuses on web design. Karl, the third member of this design laboratory is, interestingly enough, a photographer who also focuses on web design. Their work is interconnected by an emphasis on visual attractiveness and new perspectives on designed materials and takes place on the wave of contemporary digital communication. The name of the studio is not a mere pun but reality: Daniel lives in Paris, Jesper in Shanghai, and Karl in Berlin. Their collection is, nevertheless, very tangible and definitely ranked among the best design projects one could come across in the stuffed Greenhouse.

The Christmas-cake-like knitwear on a wire structure provides the Pleats-Pleats sofa with homely character, lightness, nice texture, and special poetics. When seated, one feels as if he or she is entering an outdoor space filled with trees and hammocks. The Mini lamp, with a distinct shade in the form of a huge bell, spotlight, or shower, is also filled with lightness, air, and imagination. The Ribbon stool, however, is a completely different story. The design for the enfolded sheet-metal snail seems to have originated in the Stripe Coll sheet-metal furniture collection designed by Jiří Pelcl in the late 1990s. Thus, it gives a surprising impression in the context of the other works, perhaps because one immediately starts to think about the Bart table and the Wave armchair. Nevertheless, these offerings from the Imaginary Office studio constitute a very strong trio of new products. Nothing remains but to look forward to their following objects.

www.imaginaryoffice.se

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