While at ICFF, we took note of MATERIA, a New York-based design studio that focuses on furniture, lighting and objects that amplify the natural beauty of materials such as stone, brass, calfskin, parchment, steel, porcelain and wood.
Drawing from their combined backgrounds in choreography, fashion, landscape design and woodworking, owners Megan Sommerville and Matt Ensner released a beautiful collection, and IÂ were specifically taken by their lighting, which felt as if it were modeled after flying birds or floating pieces of paper. I was surprised to discover that the pieces I was looking at were actually made of porcelain.
The FORCHETTE series was inspired by a collaboration with ceramicist Andrew Molleur, as well as the clustered, asymmetrical arrangements of barnacles in nature.
SLICE is a collection of simple, restrained silhouettes featuring shades that can be oriented in any direction, casting light through the open side of the shade (the “slice”).
The TSURU collection was in fact, inspired by birds, as I had initially suspect. In particular, the series was modeled after the dancing silhouettes of the Red Crowned Crane, marrying porcelain “leaves” with spun brass to create a silhouette that feels as if it’s moving.
The TORO series, composed of a table lamp and a pendant, also uses the porcelain leaves in the TSURU collection.
See the rest of the collection and their furniture and accessories here.