Textile furnishings

Attending Milan Design Week for the first time, Studio Nito wins third prize at the SaloneSatellite Award with handwoven pieces. #MDW2016

The inspiration behind a series comprising a chair, armchair, stool and side table is professed in the name of their first design as Studio Nito – Bobina. The basic material chosen is resin-reinforced yarn wound around a bobbin by the two German designers Nil Atalay and Tobias Juretzek to form the body of their pieces.

They produced the furniture themselves in their workshop in Kassel, where they live and teach at the university where they studied product design and first met. Carrying forward teaching and design careers at the same time, they have been experimenting together since 2008 but only this year have perfected some designs and brought them to the great platform for young design that is the SaloneSatellite, which for this its 19th edition selected approximately 700 products. Bobina secured third prize thanks to a mix of design and manual skills.

Studio Nito, Bobina — Studio Nito, collezione Bobina, SaloneSatellite 2016

“We worked on a base, to which we fixed pins in a mesh pattern and then wound the warmed material around them” – they explain. “The yarns are woven in four layers and in different directions to produce an ornamentally attractive design that can be personalised by changing the colours. Once this phase is completed, the base is removed and we insert the seat and legs.” The design has a strong aesthetic impact and the pieces are light without sacrificing stability, no negligible point.

Studio Nito, Tint lamp, SaloneSatellite 2016

At the moment, it takes roughly four hours to produce one piece but the timescale will be reduced once the base and process have been perfected – claim Nito. Bobina may also have a future in mass-production if the cotton yarn is replaced with new-generation plastic. On the stand, the two designers also presented a lamp, again with a strong aesthetic and easy to handle. Tint consists in a number of mobile elements hooked onto a central pin with housing for the bulb. Moving these elements changes the dominant colour and creates plays of light and shadow. The bulb can also be shifted to the top of the lamp to change its physiognomy and light provision.