Following a seven month residency at the Design Museum as part of the institution’s 2014 Designers in Residence programme, Torsten Sherwood has been selected by the Design Council as one of 70 ‘Ones to Watch‘. NOOOK is a series of modular cardboard discs, following the principles of Lego, but enabling children to build three-dimensional structures large enough to play in, rather than just with – “a construction toy for architectural play” in his words. Made from corrugated cardboard, it is cheap to make and environmentally sustainable. Torsten’s project was selected in the Everyday living category alongside Marjan van Aubel’s ‘Current Table’ glass top that combined stained glass with solar technology enabling it to harness the sun’s power to charge your iPhone, and Caroline Claisse’s experimental exhibition designs, inspired by Andre Breton and Man Ray.
What’s the most important thing to know about you?
From a design perspective, the distinctive feature of my work is its interdisciplinary nature and this is something I want to push in the future. Although the Design Council has selected me for my product design, I actually studied architecture and also practice a little furniture design. For me it is all the same discipline and that is really important. I hope to take this further and start work on a small building soon.
What inspires your work?
Inspiration has come from all over, but there are a couple of recurring themes like the mid-century Danish Modernists: Børge Mogensen, Kaare Klint, Inger and Johannes Exner, as well as the Shakers who really influenced that generation of Danes. I often drawn inspiration from geometry and its mathematics, as well as structures found in nature – one of my favourite books is Animal Architecture by Karl von Frisch and it has some great pages on everything from spider webs, and honey comb to slime mould and beaver canals.
Talk me through your design and making process.
I think of my approach as quite a practical one. In a general way, it always starts off by formulating an idea and is then a process of testing and development, but I also like allowing the constraints of a project, particularly in its materials or structure to dictate a lot of the design. In this sense, it’s often about trying to discover what the design wants to be, rather than what I want it to be.
What’s your favourite part of the process?
There is a moment near the beginning, where the core idea of the design is discovered -by no means finished – but it’s pretty clear where you’re going to go, and that moment is often really pleasing because you have that initial joy that you have solved something, but also some relief that although you’re not finished, you at least know where you’re going.
What’s your favourite tool and why?
My favourite tool is probably a Japanese pull saw; it is of course, a great tool, but it is also a really great piece of design in its own right. There’s a beauty to its pure pragmatism, it is author-less and quiet, yet very distinctive; a really good precedent for a useful and beautiful everyday object.
Tell me about a really good day and a really bad day in the life of Torsten Sherwood.
A good day probably starts a little bit later and a little bit slower, as I’m not a natural morning person. It would definitely involve coffee, maybe a walk in the park and would be one of those days where work just seems to happen naturally. A bad day would be the complete opposite. An early start under pressure because a deadline is coming up and the work isn’t coming along, but just being forced out because it has to.
What defines good design?
It is almost always a practical matter. All my designs have a clear function, but I also really admire and am trying to emulate the simplicity, ‘background design’, quiet and restrained designs that you find in the ideas of Jasper Morrison’s ‘super normal’, the ideas of Mingei, and Dieter Rams’ ‘as little design as possible.’
What are you most proud of?
It has to be NOOOK and the Designer in Residence Exhibition at the Design Museum. I am, of course, very proud of the design, and getting the residency exhibition was a really amazing opportunity, but I am also really proud that I managed to pull it off at all. An interactive play exhibition made of cardboard was a pretty ambitious project for the residency exhibition, maybe even naive, but with a lot of hard work it came together well in the end.
What advice would you give to an aspiring designer?
The advice that I am trying to put into action at the moment is to try to create as many opportunities for myself as possible; to try to actively engineer serendipity to get those chances that are going to help me along. I apply for as many competitions, shows and things as possible, even if I don’t think I am likely to get them, even trying to self-generate work, and eventually something will work out and good things will happen.
What did it mean to you to be selected as one of the Design Council’s Ones To Watch?
Getting on the Design Council’s Ones To Watch was a really great honour, especially when you consider some of the other designers on the list: Kibwe Tavares, Marjan van Aube, Chloe Meineck… some really impressive people, and a year ago I wouldn’t have thought of myself being put alongside them, so it’s a really big compliment.
And finally, what’s your favourite colour?
A mustardy orange or a kind of hot pinky red.
Further reading for the especially geeky:
