After a month spent with furniture and objects, our October edit widens the frame to the room. The four practices here work across interiors, furniture, sets and styling and each comes to a space at a different moment: while it is being drawn, furnished, staged or photographed.
This month, we’re featuring:
barbed project
Kajsa Melchior
Studio Lugo
Priszcilla Varga
Each was featured as Project of the Week throughout October. Here’s a closer look at the work.
barbed project: From the Set to the Room
barbed project began with sets. Before founding the studio in Tallinn, Veera Gontsugova worked in art direction and set design, and that experience still shapes how barbed approaches a space. Today the studio works across spatial design, set design and creative direction. It takes commissions in interiors and objects, production and set design, and event decoration. Its references come from popular and internet culture, fashion and art.
Tools board by berbed project. Image © barbed project
The artistic side has a technical footing: Gontsugova is a certified interior architect (Level 7). The studio is based in Estonia and works worldwide. Its objects have found their own audience. The quilted silver bed throw became a bestseller within a year, and this summer barbed became the first independent resident at Crosby Studios Gallery in Paris, the gallery space of Harry Nuriev’s Crosby Studios.
Quilted silver bed throw by berbed project. Image © barbed project
Kajsa Melchior: Between Interior Architecture and Sculpture
Kajsa Melchior designs interiors the way some people compose music. She looks for the right rhythm between color, light and material, and plans the three together until a room reads as one whole.
Interior design by Kajsa Melchior for Nordiska Galleriet headquarters, Stockholm. Photo: Henrik Lundell, hlvm.
She opened her Stockholm practice after five years at Wingårdhs, the Swedish architecture office founded by Gert Wingårdh. In her own work, interior architecture and sculpture feed into each other, and the two often end up in the same room. Alongside interiors she designs furniture and sculptural objects. Her portfolio includes private homes as well as commissions for Byredo and Tiger of Sweden.
Residential interior project by Kajsa Melchior, Stockholm. Photo: Henrik Lundell, hlvm.
Studio Lugo and the Cultures of Anatolia
Every Studio Lugo piece begins with research. Doruk Kubilay, who founded the Istanbul studio in 2015, looks to the cultural heritage of Anatolia. He turns what he finds into collectible objects and interiors with a decidedly current eye. The work moves between interior and product design and each piece is meant to speak to its roots while keeping the studio’s voice.
Doruk Kubilay. Photo: Yesim Ozugeldi
Kubilay trained in graphic design. During his studies he travelled often to Milan to research fine furniture and interior design, and that mix of disciplines shows. So does his insistence on originality: when a similar design appears elsewhere, he redesigns his own piece from the beginning. Detailing, hands-on craftsmanship and experimentation with contemporary techniques run through the work. It has been widely featured in the press and has begun to receive awards.
Resonance, Studio Lugo. Photo: Mehmet Ali Kangotan & Yalın Zabun
Beyond the studio, Kubilay sits on the board of Idealist, an independent organization working to develop interior architecture in Turkey. Its work runs from education to professional practice and includes raising the field’s international profile.
Priszcilla Varga: After the Architects Leave
Priszcilla Varga’s work begins once the architects and interior designers are done. The Copenhagen-based interior stylist, set designer and art director works out how a finished space should feel and how it will come across in a photograph. She brings in the texture, light and objects that turn an interior into an image.
Casa Cook Samos. Architectural visualization: Block722, Fat Tony Studio. Interior stylist: Priszcilla Varga. Photo: Ana Santl
Her projects span hospitality, editorial and brand photography, from campaigns and brand rollouts to shoots. The materials stay consistent: raw Mediterranean textures, a quiet palette of soft neutrals, warm wood and concrete and tactile props that make even large hotel interiors feel lived-in. Her clients include Capella Hotels, Patina Maldives, Casa Cook Hotels and Parkhotel Mondschein, as well as Kinfolk, Ark Journal, Vogue Ukraine, Leica, Nanushka and Audo CPH.
Patina Maldives. Architecture & Interior Concept: Marcio Kogan / Studio mk27. Set Styling: Priszcilla Varga
Projects of The Month
Taken together, the four follow a room through most of its life, from the first plan to the photograph that stays after the props are packed away.
Throughout October, barbed project, Kajsa Melchior, Studio Lugo and Priszcilla Varga joined our Project of The Week section, where we curate standout projects, practices and brands across design, art, fashion and craft. Last month we stayed closer to the object with our guide to contemporary furniture and object design.
