Awards | Designer | Grassimesse | Interview | Product | smow | smow-Designpreis
Nadja Schulze once opined that "Licht ist die tollste aller Sprachen", 'light is the greatest of all languages', and the light her lamps LiLa and Bow spoke at Grassimesse 2024 so enamoured the Grassimesse Jury they awarded Nadja the 2024 Grassimesse smow-Designpreis.......
Born and raised in Leipzig, Nadja Schulze completed her Bachelor in Innenarchitektur at Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle in the spring of 2023, before beginning an Interior Architecture Master's at the Burg in the autumn of 2023, a Master's in the course of which three lamps, three lamp families, arose, LiLa, Bow and 360°: the lattermost, wall lamps that you turn like an olde worlde telephone dial and as you do the cable rolls in and out thereby providing for both cable storage and a graphic element; the middlemost a flexible, positionable, wall lamp inspired by, and constructed from, tent poles; the foremost Lightweight Lamps, a modular lighting system inspired by tent poles, developed from Bow, that can exist as a wall, floor or ceiling version, and can not only be extended or reduced as a wall, floor or ceiling version, but switched between a wall, floor or ceiling version.
Three lamp families presented at Grassimesse as pre-production models, and of which the Grassimesse 2024 Jury opined of Bow and LiLa, the idea "is both surprising and convincing" and enthused that, rather than recycling or upcycling, "a product that already exists in industry is repurposed, its properties optimally employed for a completely new function" and that the presented physical results "clearly shows the high design standards".
And a Grassimesse 2024 which, somewhat inconveniently, briefly interrupted Nadja's writing of her Master's thesis.
As did we when we met up with Nadja in Halle to discuss light, lighting, interiors and design, but started at the beginning with the question why interior design, interior architecture, what is, was, the fascination with interiors.......
Nadja Schulze: Interiors are the places where we spend most of our time, and they should be designed with this awareness. Interiors can be so diverse, there are not always clear boundaries, it is often a question of perspective, a matter of interpretation, rooms have an identity, they speak a language. I have always liked to deal with "space", and often asked myself why it triggers such different feelings in me, why some rooms inspire me, almost attract me, why are there rooms in which I'm almost overwhelmed.
smow Blog: Which explains the decision to study interior architecture, but more specifically why the decision to study interior architecture at Burg Halle?
Nadja Schulze: I'm from Leipzig and as a child began competing in gymnastic competitions, later training in Halle where I got to know the Burg. I went to an open day and applied to study interior design because I wanted to answer such questions, I wanted to learn to understand spaces, to speak this language. During my studies I was finally able to learn this language and my enthusiasm grew.
smow Blog: Which is also an interesting connection between gymnastics and interior design, both, one could argue, being methods of exploring, occupying, relating to space, but more generally how does, indeed does, your time practising gymnastics relate to your practising of design?
Nadja Schulze: Gymnastics is all about perfection down to the smallest detail and I have the same standards today as a designer, whereby the best thing is that you can only strive for perfection, you will never achieve it. That means I will always have a detail that preoccupies me, there will always have something I have to work on. More generally, sport is an indispensable balance for me and an important support for my creativity.
smow Blog: And if we're correctly informed your Master's thesis is also concerned with sport...
Nadja Schulze: ...exactly, I am planning accommodation for cyclists housed in an existing building here in Halle, directly on the route of the Saaleradweg...
smow Blog: ...why an accommodation project for long-distance cyclists?
Nadja Schulze: The bicycle is one of the most important means of transport today, it is not only extremely practical, but it keeps you fit and healthy and it is also a great companion, however, the structures for travelling by bicycle still need to be improved. On a personal level I really enjoy cycling, for me it is a liberation, and I also enjoy long distance routes, I cycle over the Alps once a year and this year I cycled from Munich to Ljubljana in context of my Master's thesis. For me the bicycle is not only very important personally, but even more so for the future.
smow Blog: A personal interest is always a good starting point for any project, and also neatly highlights the importance of sport to you and your work. We'll come back to the Master's thesis shortly, but first, you once wrote that "light is my most important design tool" Why? What is the importance for you?
Nadja Schulze: Light has interested me since I started my studies and a year ago I had the opportunity to dive into the topic in more detail in a semester project. The first task we were given was to observe lighting situations on campus and then develop a small installation, I focussed on "light" as a phenomenon in itself, I looked out the window and asked myself the question, is light visible? To find out I built a room where no light could get in, a dark room, then I let light in, I experimented a bit and understood that light itself is not visible, rather light makes things visible, that light can be there and can also be absent, that light is only visible when it hits objects or rooms. My conclusion from this, as an interior designer, is that I can only see rooms if I let light in, that makes light the most important design tool for me as an interior designer. Subsequently I wanted to find out whether light can be felt. It is difficult to describe, but by way of approaching that question I let light into this room, just enough so that the room was not yet recognizable, it was all about the light, it was an installation that was intended to draw attention to what light is, what light does and what light can be, once you appreciate that, you become aware of the meaning of light, the power of light!
smow Blog: Can light be felt?
Nadja Schulze: Yes, light can be felt...
smow Blog: ...only felt physically or also non-physically...
Nadja Schulze: ...light primarily influences whether we can see rooms, objects, everything that surrounds us, that is the physical part, we perceive light, it is there, we can orient ourselves. But beyond that physicality light is also perceptible, has an emotional significance, thus for me light is not only the most important design tool from a physical point of view, because it is responsible for us being able to see rooms at all, but also from an emotional point of view because it has a very individual effect on us, light is extremely important, it influences our everyday life, our behaviour, our mood. That is why light will always play a major role in my planning.
smow Blog: Which brings us neatly back to your Master's thesis, thank you. You said you're project is based on, in, an existing building in Halle, the very obvious question, how is the light situation there, did you have a good starting light situation?
Nadja Schulze: (laughs) The building proved to be a very inspired choice. It is an old warehouse that originally was six stories with a flat roof, however in the 90s it was completely burned out and has now been demolished to all but two floors, and no longer has a roof, which means that only the facades are left and so I have a lot of light inside. My goal is to give the building a new structure, to bring the language the building speaks externally into the interior, thus I can decide how I deal with the light. The main function will be the accommodation and that is where the most light will be because the lighting conditions should be best where people spend the most time.
smow Blog: We know you're not finished yet so we'll not ask what that means in detail, we're happy to wait and see, but generally, in principle, for you, do you prefer to work with natural light or artificial light?
Nadja Schulze: It's difficult to say. As an interior designer I really like working with natural light, I only used natural light for my installation which means it was different with every lighting condition, at different times of day, which I find fascinating, that the lighting mood cannot be determined using natural light. But that also means that as an interior designer I cannot control everything with natural light. Which is where I become a designer of objects, a designer of lamps, I can support the natural light with artificial light. And is also where my attention to detail comes into play, because here I have it in my own hands and can give the light a shape, a direction, a space! So I can't decide, maybe I don't have to...
smow Blog: ...no, not all, certainly not for our sakes, and arguably questions of natural versus/with artificial light in interior design is part of your journey, or perhaps the method of your journey, but given this interplay between natural and artificial light, can one say that your lamp designs are about, if one so will, increasing the control of the illumination, increasing your control of the light situation?
Nadja Schulze: Yes, with artificial light I have the opportunity to make light spatial, and with the objects, the lamps, that I have designed so far I had clear ideas from the start about how I wanted to stage them in the room and that always with the objective that the light determines the room and not the room the light.
smow Blog: Which we guess is also an expression of how light plays a major role in your planning, and is also and interesting perspective when choosing lighting, a lighting design or lamp, for any space. But turning to your lamp designs, arguably the one that first attracts one's attention is Bow, a work that began with, and was then constructed from, tent poles. Explain. How does one get from tent poles to a lamp?
Nadja Schulze: At the beginning of the semester there were two topics that interested me a lot, one of them was tent poles. I like being outdoors, I like climbing, cycling, hiking, camping, and as such I have a great enthusiasm for lightweight materials, constructions and buildings, which brought me to tents. I find it fascinating that tents have a very small pack size, but when you erect them a 50 cm long pole suddenly becomes a room. With Bow I tried to combine all the advantages that tent poles have in one design, they are super light, they can be put together, I have a small pack size, I can put a medium in them, and I can bend them, Bow combines all of this, thus I didn't invent anything new I just translated it all into another language.
smow Blog: We'd question "didn't invent anything new" tent poles exist, LEDs exist, but as separate entities, they need to be brought together, which is the second component of the question how one gets from tent poles to a lamp, inspiration through material and context is the conceptual part, then there is the physical part, and also the question of how straightforward that was?
Nadja Schulze: I had the first prototypes relatively quickly and then started to think in detail about how the light would come out of the tent pole. From the beginning I didn't want to increase the diameter of the tent pole and I didn't want a lamp shade, so I milled out the tent poles, which involved a lot of experimentation, how much can I mill out a tube without it breaking? How much light do I want to come out, how wide does the milling have to be? I learned a lot during the whole process, not just about designing with light but also all the technical aspects, for example, I had never soldered before this project, never worked with cables, so it was a process, but I never felt like I had to invent something new, instead I relied on things that already existed. And I really enjoyed working on it, and I still enjoy it, I learned a lot of new things in the process. I am very curious, I love acquiring new knowledge, so much happens in the process, also a lot of unexpected things, the insights that take you further, problem, solution, new problem, new solution...
smow Blog: ...hold that thought we may need in a couple of minutes, but first, and staying with the lamps, the modular LiLa system was then developed from Bow, but rather than tent poles you used specially produced aluminium tubes, why the move away from the tent poles?
Nadja Schulze: Bow was a prototype where a lot of things were primitively stuck together, where I experimented how it could work. With LiLa I kept the material because I wanted the lamp to remain lightweight, however I also wanted to think further, more towards the product, questioned how would it be industrially manufactured, how would the individual parts be manufactured, so I used a normal industrial product but kept the basic principle of the tent pole and just rethought the framework, developed a framework that is modular and can be dismantled at any time, so that I could replace individual modules if necessary, or access the installed technology.
smow Blog: Starting with a normal industrial product is something shared with the 360º lamps, as is a somewhat atypical starting point, this time not tent poles but vacuum cleaners.......
Nadja Schulze: .......exactly, as I said, at the beginning of the semester there were two topics that really interested me, tent poles and cables, cable organization, designing with cables. The goal was to avoid a tangle of cables on the floor, so that cables disappeared from a room as a tripping hazard, and as a starting point I dismantled a vacuum cleaner because I think it's a very clever system where you press a button and the vacuum cleaner tidies up its cable all by itself. I was curious here too, I wanted to know how it works, I wanted to see it for myself and try it out. That's how my first lamp came about, I call it NooNoo and is a cable reel from a vacuum cleaner, I simply connected an E27 light bulb to it, it lit up and I could decide for myself how long the cable was.
smow Blog: Which we really like as a starting position, and also really like the playfulness in the version that you presented at Grassimesse, both the interactivity of turning the lamp and the way a length of cable can be left hanging as a form of decoration that isn't ornamentation. Can such a playfulness be understood as part of the functionality of 360º?
Nadja Schulze: Yes, certainly, and also that I only installed lights on a quarter of the back of the lampshade so that you can decide for yourself in which direction it shines depending on how you turn it, and you can change it again and again, thus combing a playful aspect with the functionality of the cable management. And I haven't finished here either, 360º is also a series that can be developed in different directions, and that I will continue to develop! I'm already looking forward to it.
smow Blog: As are we. That's the future, but looking back, in many regards it all started with a semester project, you've noted a few times how much you learnt from the process and how important, and fun, the learning process was. But was your focus during the semester project only learning or did you start the semester with the aim of a product?
Nadja Schulze: A semester project like this always starts with a topic, a targeted engagement with the topic, dealing with it, understanding it, immersing yourself and not directly with the goal of creating a product from it, the learning process is the primary objective, but with the aspiration of developing a concept for a product. I ended up creating several, and at the conclusion of the semester project I said that this is not the end, I will continue. Not least because over time I thought about more and more details, for example, how can it be even simpler, how could it be more easily produced, how could I make it more accessible. My goal is to always break down my designs so that they are easy to understand for all, and it is also important to me to only construct and design as much as I really need to give my design a statement. So to be considerate with details and design solutions, to design with sensitivity.
smow Blog: We'd certainly argue that you achieved that universal ease of understanding, and reduced sensitivity, with all three projects. Having decided to move from project to object, from research to production, why the decision to exhibit at Grassimesse?
Nadja Schulze: I had the opportunity to exhibit in Milan this year and there I gained my first experience of showing my work at a trade fair, and then I simply seized the chance to apply for the Grassimesse, on the one hand by way of applying for the smow-Designpreis, but above all I wanted to gain further experience, to present my work to an audience, to get feedback, to exchange ideas with people who are interested in my designs, to talk to the people I design for. Designing is a passion for me and my aim is to share this passion in the form of my designs, the exchange at a trade fair is very valuable and takes me much further than just sitting alone at a desk and designing.
smow Blog: Which naturally poses the question, how was the feedback in Milan and Leipzig, perhaps more interestingly, how was it in comparison?
Nadja Schulze: Very different, also because of the different contexts and the audience. Exhibiting at the Grassimesse with this context of being in a museum, with a very warm audience, I got really good feedback, and I take a lot of motivation with me from Grassimesse to continue working on the projects. Milan, of course, a huge stage, it was my first time at the Salone and immersing myself there was completely new for me as an interior designer, but you have a slightly different distance to the people who come there, Leipzig was more familiar, more individual than in Milan, but in Milan too, there was a lot of interest, very good feedback, also for the Burg stand as a whole. Both were very valuable and wonderful experiences.
smow Blog: You've had your first taste of exhibiting, your first products are in advanced stage of development, you're almost finished your Master's degree. How does your future path look from here, primarily interior design, primarily product design, or...
Nadja Schulze: ...I think it will be a mixture. I will definitely stay true to interior design, I will always look at and design objects with the eye of an interior designer, it is a beautiful view, it goes beyond the pure object itself, it is about the play in the room. However through the lamps I noticed that I really like to go into more detail, tend to think on a smaller scale, then you are more in the product and right now I have a burning enthusiasm to further develop the lamps, so if I have the opportunity to continue working on them I would like to stay in that direction for the time being, but the two paths aren't mutually exclusive, rather they complement each other enormously well.
You're certainly presenting a convincing argument for that position. Alles Gute!
More information on Nadja Schulze and her work can be found @nadjashlze
