The Designers

"Furniture talks. We associate it with events or a part of our lives. By breaking the distance between production and purchase, iwood reinforces the emotional charge of design.

"The iwood experience is unique and emotional. It is not an act of purchase like any other. These pieces of furniture will have a story and a special flavor for the people who buy them.

"I like expressive objects. It can be a question of material, technique or use. I don't have a favorite material, but the nobility of solid wood particularly inspires me.

www.adrienrovero.com

"Constraints help us create. The iwood production model has allowed us to develop a collection with a strong identity. It's all the more pleasing that the designers have been integrated into this approach.

"This new production model is a challenge and a huge opportunity to rethink the whole production process. Putting sustainability of furniture and local production at the center of the concerns is really positive. Everyone wins, from the designer to the customer. But I especially like the fact that the concept uses digitalization to be close to the people, the customers but also the carpenters who produce the furniture.

www.danielwehrli.ch

Elie Fazel (FR) and Valentin Sieber (CH) finished their studies in industrial design at ECAL/Ecole cantonale d'art de Lausanne in 2019. Freshly graduated, they moved to New York and Berlin where they were able to develop their skills.

Today, the two acolytes are back in their respective regions and have joined forces to create Work Matter, a multidisciplinary design office. Their fascination for product design, but also for space and architecture, has shaped their way of approaching and conceiving new projects in line with contemporary uses.

Work Matter specializes in product design, furniture design, interior design, scenography, exhibition design and art direction.

Their designs are characterized by a conceptual approach, a singular aesthetic and a functional dimension while trying not to lose sight of the added value and the narrative of their projects.

www.work-matter.com

The architects Manuel Bieler, Antoine Robert-Grandpierre and Laurent Saurer develop with their agency Localarchitecture a writing attached to the context and the environment, capable of revealing a powerful relationship between the form and its environment. Beyond the norms, they strive to give their projects an immutable and silent presence.

Among their remarkable achievements: the chapel for the deaconesses of Saint-Loup in 2008, the Swiss embassy in Côte d'Ivoire in 2015, the Neoapostolic church in Lausanne and the Rudolf-Steiner school in Geneva Confignon in 2019. Winners of the Best Architects Awards in 2015 and 2019, as well as the International Wood Architecture Award in 2019, all three also teach (EPFL, Ensa Strasbourg).

www.localarchitecture.ch

"Constraints are an expression grid that are part of my training as an architect. For the iWood editorial line, we had to develop a new language that integrates the requirements of this new production model. Unlike a 3D printer that allows you to add material with total formal freedom, we created designs solely by subtracting material from solid wood panels. This production requirement invited us to offer furniture with a clean aesthetic."

"The design world has always been excited about new materials, seen as a field of experience for new aesthetic expressions. But when your new orange plastic table has a stripe, it loses its edge. It's the opposite with solid wood. In addition to its aesthetic, tactile and geobiological quantities, wood, like good whiskey, ages very well. The wear and tear on its surface tells a story. Your oak table gains patina over time, it grows in size in some way. And if that bothers you, you can sand it down. This is a great advantage of wood, it can meet all aesthetic preconceptions. It's up to us to ensure sustainable management of this resource that the planet offers us."