Region
Maharam is proud to announce a special residency with Established & Sons, a London-based platform for experimental contemporary design, at Maharam’s offices in New York City.
The breakout spaces of Maharam’s creative headquarters have been thoughtfully furnished with new pieces by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Pauline Deltour, Konstantin Grcic, and Sebastian Wrong, among others, to mark the international debut of Established & Sons’s new Live/Work collection. Live/Work responds to the increasingly blurred distinction between living and working environments and the shift from the traditional office to flexible, communal workspace. Presenting Maharam textiles on all upholstered pieces, the residency posits a multifunctional environment for focused work, informal meetings, or relaxation within an active contract interior.
Of the textile selection, Sebastian Wrong, design director of Established & Sons, says: “The main criterion was to present each piece in a new light, environment, or use.” Visitors to the residency first encounter Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s Cassette sofa in Maharam’s minimalist lobby, invitingly upholstered in Roam, a densely tufted felt boucle woven in Belgium. For Grid—the Bouroullecs’s modular Live/Work system—the design studios opted for three different textiles to highlight its versatility and dynamic potential. Emphasizing the residential feel of natural fibers, upholsteries include Superweave, a chunky woven wool reissued from an original 1966 design by Alexander Girard; Flurry, a plush tricolored construction; and Monk’s Wool, a lofty wool woven on an island off the coast of Scotland where textiles have been produced for centuries.
Also ideal for breakout spaces, Sebastian Wrong’s Lucio chair offers an integrated side table for ad-hoc working. Wrong complements the Lucio’s flowing shape with Maharam textiles Valor, a wool satin from the United Kingdom, and Hearth, a nubby combination of wool and cotton woven in Belgium. According to Wrong, “Lucio has been a real lesson in the true value of upholstery textiles. The textile gives the form life, like a skin, and this has revealed so many possibilities for the design.”
Established & Sons’s Beam and Bloc tables, Cho Light, Filigrana Light, and Heidi stool appear throughout the office, including in Maharam’s lunchroom, where The Wanderer, a custom work created by Erwan Bouroullec to celebrate the occasion, adorns the walls. Printed on textile with aluminum foil backing, free-hanging panels display meandering lines created using a coding process Bouroullec describes as “drawing with numbers.”
Maharam and Established & Sons share a commitment to delivering new perspectives via material and technical innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration. A focus on utility and longevity underlies both companies’ approaches to product development, as does a desire to design for a range of applications without compromise. “We’re honored to host Established & Sons in our space,” says Maharam’s Senior Vice President of Design, Mary Murphy. “There is a natural affinity between the two companies, both in our many shared collaborators and their exacting approach to form, color, and materials, which we have long admired.”
The residency will be open to visitors by appointment.
About Established & Sons
A furniture and lighting company based in London, Established & Sons has been a leader in experimental contemporary design since 2005. Commitments to skilled craftsmanship and cutting-edge manufacturing techniques allow the brand to produce intelligent designs that are diverse in the extreme yet united in their quest for the extraordinary.
Collaborations with both leading and up-and-coming designers are an essential part of the Established & Sons DNA. Its collections include some of the most important examples of 21st-century design including works by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Konstantin Grcic, Zaha Hadid, Amanda Levete, Ingo Maurer, and Jasper Morrison. Many of the pieces have been acquired by international museums, galleries, institutions, and private collections.