KUTARQ Studio experiments with dialects of metal with the 'GVPO' and 'FOLIO' collections

What gives design soul? Is it the creator’s anomalous perspective, the dialogue between materiality and research, or perhaps, sheer simplicity? The expeditions that creative professionals undertake are delineated by a pursuit of functionality in tandem with a search for a distinct personality that emanates from the design itself. Through a carefully contrived process, designers set out on a journey to seek imaginative objects and the life that animates them, only to end up vis-à-vis a language that is informed by perspective as much as by norms of pragmatism.

KUTARQ Studio is a multidisciplinary design practice based in Spain, helmed by architect and designer Jordi López Aguiló. The studio dabbles with lighting design, furniture design and objects that betoken a methodical process, emphasising both material and research. With the studio’s two recently unveiled collections called GVPO and FOLIO, the product designer creates silhouettes redolent of an industrial process. While the GVPO lighting collection plays with the natural properties of aluminium, the FOLIO collection comprises furniture that moulds steel as bent paper. Singular in appearance, both ensembles foray into the semantics of metals and their potentials and possibilities. “I believe the most powerful ideas are the ones that require less resources, production, and energy. The designs are simple to understand, honest in materials, long-lasting and sustainable,” Aguiló relays.

For Aguiló, the constant challenge of revealing the ‘soul’ behind his objects propels their design evolution. He offers users not just an aesthetically pleasing piece, but a design with persona and a life of its own. After years of collaborations with architecture firms in Paris and Copenhagen, the designer resorted to his home town Valencia, where he conceived the studio in 2012. KUTARQ Studio's oeuvre has been exhibited internationally across design events such as Milan Design Week, Frankfurt Light & Building, Neocon Chicago, Tokyo Design Week, Stockholm Furniture Fair, Maison & Objet and Seoul Living Design Fair. The product designer furthers his ethos that involves 'interaction, emotion, and adapting to the user's needs' in these new collections. “The development of these two collections was quite smooth—the time spent in the development was quite short, compared to other projects. From sketches to small paper models, I jumped directly to laser cutting the first prototypes,” Aguiló shares.

The GVPO lighting collection epitomises the natural properties of aluminium, as Aguiló points out, “Aluminium is the best material for heat dissipation and the texture created while reflecting the LED light was really interesting.” The lighting designs are stripped down to the bare minimum, made from a single pipe, laser-cut, and then bent and later patinated by hand. A double warm LED track is concealed under the aluminium section, allowing for smooth, indirect light to illuminate living spaces with radial reflections. The compositions are such that they strive for a balance between modern technology and craftsmanship.

The fixtures are dimmable and come in different iterations and dimensions. The lamp designs also reveal the charm of raw aluminium in a sculptural entity perfectly paired with LED technology that reduces heat dissipation significantly. The lamp’s inherent function is augmented by its minimalist design and versatility, making it seamlessly merge into any space. The luminaire can be oriented towards the wall for a smooth ambient light, or towards the living space, casting radial reflections and emitting a functional reading light. The GVPO table lamp evolves as it ages, the raw aluminium enrobed in a patina over time.

“For the FOLIO collection, flexibility and durability were key, so we decided to use stainless steel,” the furniture designer explains. The FOLIO collection is a derivative of the ongoing assays of the tensile qualities of steel, resulting in a form evocative of bent paper. Planar laser-cuts morph 2D sheets of metal into 3D tensioned and transformed functional typologies comprising a chaise lounge, a low table, and a floor lamp. The sculptural designs are adaptable, owing to the innate material properties they embody and underline. Depending on the position of the screws, the height of the table design and the angle of the chaise lounge varies respectively. When not assembled, the pieces are completely flat, and the material waste is reduced to a minimum during the production process. “The pieces are meant to last more than one generation and become collectible artefacts that create a bond with the user and blur the line between sculpture and product design,” Aguiló comments.

The evolution of the design collections involved a thorough understanding of the medium and its properties, which came about with bouts of trial and error. Moreover, sustainability was succinctly interwoven with the production process and the transportation. “There is no waste produced during the production, all pieces are made from standard lengths of aluminium pipes and stainless steel sheets. The pieces are cut in a factory (located) less than a 30-minute drive, then bent, finished and patinated by hand in my studio in Valencia,” the lighting designer explains. An amalgamation of clean geometries, dextrous craftsmanship, and unmistakable character infuses the designs conceived by KUTARQ Studio, striving to embrace functionality while in perpetual pursuit of their ‘soul.’