Tilla Goldberg is Director of Product Design and Brand Spaces at the renowned Studio Ippolito Fleitz Group (IFG), which designed the new NEULAND carpet collection together with OBJECT CARPET. In the interview, she talks about challenges in the development process, the longing for simple spaces and childhood memories of OBJECT CARPET.
Ms. Goldberg, NEULAND is the second collection that you have developed with OBJECT CARPET. What motivated you to collaborate again?
The fusion of different perspectives and skills was enormously enriching for me. On the one hand, we at Ippolito Fleitz have a special way of viewing spaces – for example, the effect of a carpet in the context of an entire interior. On the other hand, there is the OBJECT CARPET team, which is deeply involved in topics such as fiber technology and dyeing techniques. So there was a constant switching between macro and micro mode. We asked ourselves: What effect does the carpet have in the room? What stage does it create for human interaction? At the same time, every single fiber had to be examined in detail in order to check color components and color effects. This interaction then resulted in a fully integrated, holistic product. As a design studio, we also found it particularly pleasing that we were allowed to design not only the individual carpet models but also the entire visual aesthetics and room staging. The whole package! We love projects like this because they give us the opportunity to think through a concept and implement it in all its facets.
What approach did you take to the project?
The core idea of NEULAND is strongly based on the concept of sustainability, with the new, circular DUO technology from OBJECT CARPET forming the critical foundation for this. We wanted to create something that expresses the longing for a natural, authentic aesthetic – a sentiment that is clearly trending in interior design today. The idea was to create a kind of landscape in the carpet – an organic interplay of textures, colors and structures. Another important inspiration was the principle of reduction. We often have the feeling that the world out there is becoming ever faster and more complex. This makes the need for aesthetic clarity, for a pronounced geometric simplicity in room design, all the greater. NEULAND is therefore an attempt to create calm and coherence through reduction.
What challenges did you encounter in the process?
As a product designer, the challenge for me when developing a carpet or textile collection is always that you can hardly visualize the result during the process. In contrast to other interior design disciplines, with textiles it is often difficult to imagine how the combinations of colors, yarns and textures will actually work in the end. So you need a very abstract imagination to picture the result in your mind. You don’t really see it until the first samples have already been produced and tested. Ideally, you will then be positively surprised by aspects that you couldn’t have planned. That’s what makes this development process so unpredictable and exciting for me.
The NEULAND collection now comprises four different products: HELIXDUOO, FLUXDUOO, MATRIXDUOO and PARADOXDUOO. Do you have a personal favorite?
I think my favorite is definitely HELIXDUOO: a very high-pile rug that looks incredibly inviting at the very first sight. If you take a closer look, you can see that each individual fiber has a fine helix structure and is meticulously composed of several colors. This gives the surface a wonderful vitality that is almost reminiscent of natural fur or a plant structure. All this makes HELIX quite unique. I am therefore certain that the carpet will enrich many of our Ippolito Fleitz projects in the future.
Do you remember how you first came across OBJECT CARPET?
As a matter of fact, my first contact with OBJECT CARPET goes back to my early childhood. My father had these fantastic photo books from OBJECT CARPET in his architectural office. They showed how famous photographers – Michel Comte and William Wegman – positioned carpets as a grand stage. At the time, I was totally fascinated by this kind of artistic staging of space by means of photography. Incidentally, I still have those books today. In the case of NEULAND, they even inspired the collaboration with fashion photographer Monica Menez – just like our first joint OC collection!