Designed by Peclers Paris, the theme of the new season of Maison&Objet, TECH EDEN: A New Natural Awakening, explores the profound evolution of the relationship between science and nature, as the basis for a sustainable and desirable future. In INSPIRE ME!, the show’s inspirational forum, Peclers Paris has scripted the possible hospitality applications of this science/nature reconciliation. Meet some of the forum’s contributors…
Meet with Infrastructure Studio: total design.
Object and furniture design, scenography, fashion: what is Infrastructure?
Infrastructure Studio is a multidisciplinary creative studio that spans several areas of design and architecture. The studio specializes in a variety of media, including object design, furniture design, scenography, and clothing design.
We’re constantly looking for a balance between architecture and fashion design, taking inspiration from our urban environment and reusing materials and shapes to create products that often divert them from their traditional use. It’s a way for us to share our vision of the city through our eyes.
What do all these practices have in common and how do you merge them into a common practice?
First of all, we have in common the idea of construction. Then the only difference between our projects is the materials that we use. Changing mediums helps us to treat all these materials on an equal footing. We build our common practice also thanks to our similar vision of our environment. As twins, we share many cultural, artistic, and architectural influences. The exchange of ideas between us is superfluid, and we’re quick to see a subject through each other’s eyes.
Our creations are shaped by our personal history and our life in the Paris suburbs. You can feel it in the way we use urban and industrial elements, and it shows how we understand and interact with our territory.
And we’re keen to incorporate modern technological tools, such as 3D modeling and 3D printing, while maintaining a physical relationship with the material. All our furniture is hand-carved, and our clothes are also produced entirely in-house, from pattern-making to sewing and dyeing. This mix allows us to create projects that are both innovative and firmly rooted in traditional craftsmanship.
Is it possible to think in terms of aesthetics and functionality separately? In particular, will tomorrow’s clothing meet the same specifications as the home? Will it become a form of nomadic habitat?
For us, beauty lies in functionality. When we think about this idea of clothing as habitat, comes to mind German architect Gottfried Semper. He saw clothing in its simplest forms, such as a loincloth, shirt, or coat, as a kind of early architecture, a body envelope. This vision has a lot of influence on the way we think about clothing design at Infrastructure Studio. We see them as architectural expressions, but super intimate and personal.
We aim to create clothes that grow with the wearer. For us, all the signs of use and wear only add to their beauty. That’s why we use rust as a dyeing process, it allows us to bring this material to life through another medium and show it. We don’t just design clothes, but an envelope that bridges the gap between an individual and their environment.
A common thread running through your work across the variety of these media is the highly architectural dimension of both the object and the garment: do you cross your views as an architect in the case of the former and a fashion designer in the case of the latter? How do they enrich each other?
Our twinness has played a key role in our creative journey. When we were in higher education, each in our field, we spent our evenings talking about our projects and what had impressed us during the day. This enabled us to get a foot in each other’s door right from the start of our studies. We sometimes joke that we were each able to do an extra 20 percent in architecture for Arthur and fashion design for Maceo.
This combination has created a creative dialogue between two worlds that don’t often meet. For example, our use of raw materials such as concrete and steel in the clothing, comes a little from Maceo’s architectural vision. For his part, Arthur brings a touch of finesse to form, texture, and movement, which plays a big part in our architectural projects.
Each creation, whether a garment or an object, is made with particular attention to structure and form. We like to use simple shapes, and raw materials and create designs that are reminiscent of architecture, even for things that are less definitive than architecture.
Another point is to take into account the environment: objects and clothing that act as mediators between the environment and oneself. How do nature and urban design influence your approach?
We’re inspired by the way nature, the urban environment, and design intertwine. In our work, we see our creations, whether they’re objects or clothes, as fragments of our connection with our space. It’s a kind of reflection of our connection with our territory.
There’s a particularly interesting aspect to our relationship with modern architecture, concrete, and today’s cities. We have a rather ambivalent relationship with all that. On the one hand, we’re somewhat fascinated by projects like the large housing estates and the work of Le Corbusier, for example, but on the other, we’re well aware of the social problems they have created, such as the ostracism of a certain section of the population. So it’s more of a plastic and aesthetic appeal, since children these forms have become part of our unconscious heritage, and we see them as beautiful almost ‘by default’. Large housing estates are a bit like concrete boxes where people are kept in order, but over time we develop a sort of affection for these spaces, despite their flaws, and we reclaim them. It’s a mixture of fascination and criticism.
Come and explore the artistic endeavors of Infrastructure Studio at Maison&Objet, taking place from January 18 to 22 at the heart of the inspiration forum in Hall 6. The prospective teams and designers at Peclers Paris have ingeniously showcased, in INSPIRE ME!, the potential applications within the hospitality sector stemming from the harmonious fusion of science and nature.
The INSPIRE ME! forum will welcome other inspiring designers and creators like Mâche Mâché, Roxi Basa…
- Maison&Objet, 18-22 January 2024, Parc des Expositions Paris Nord Villepinte
- Forum INSPIRE ME! by Peclers Paris: Garden of the future, Hall 6
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