Interview with designer Partick Frey: “I wanted to create a feeling of softness and warmth.”

04/17

TitanCe­ram – the inno­v­a­tive ceramic mate­r­ial that Villeroy & Boch devel­oped espe­cially to man­u­fac­ture styl­ish pre­mium bath­room ele­ments. After TitanCe­ram was first used for the del­i­cate Artis wash­basin col­lec­tion and the extrav­a­gant Octa­gon pedestal wash­basin, in 2017 Villeroy & Boch is launch­ing a bath­room col­lec­tion made from TitanCe­ram – Fin­ion. The suc­cess­ful designer Patrick Frey, who is renowned for his unusual yet use­ful com­bi­na­tions of form and func­tion in his works, came up with the high-qual­ity design of the san­i­tary ceram­ics and fur­ni­ture. In the inter­view Patrick Frey talks about the cre­ation of the Villeroy & Boch Fin­ion col­lec­tion. 

Patrick Frey, born in South Korea in 1973, studied industrial design at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hanover between 1996 and 2002. In 2007, Patrick Frey founded his Studio for Industrial Design that works for brands such as Bree, Authentics, Elmar Flötotto and Vial. In the very first year of founding his own company, Patrick Frey received the Lucky Strike Junior Designer Award, the most prestigious award for young designers. Since then, many of his works have won international awards, including the iF Product Design Award and the Good Design Award from the Chicago Athenaeum. Patrick Frey has been teaching at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hanover since 2014. 

Photo: Frank Schinski, Ostkreuz 

 

Mr Frey, designing a bathroom collection was uncharted creative territory for you. How did you approach this task?

Ceramic was a new mate­r­ial for me as I had never really worked with it before. So I first delved deeper into the sub­ject of “ceram­ics”. I took part in a work­shop and gained an insight into the man­u­fac­tur­ing process at Villeroy & Boch. I was amazed by the pre­ci­sion and com­plex­ity of the pro­duc­tion. Sim­ply how time-con­sum­ing it is to pro­duce the forms and how the ceram­ics shrink dur­ing the fir­ing process. All that needs to be con­sid­ered when you are devel­op­ing a design to make sure you cre­ate a com­pelling col­lec­tion.  

Where do you get your inspiration from?

I go to trade fairs to get some cre­ative input. That does­n’t just mean repli­cat­ing what you see, but also tak­ing it fur­ther, cre­at­ing your own thing. I also keep in con­tact with col­leagues and dis­cuss inno­v­a­tive con­cepts and ideas with them. And nat­u­rally inspi­ra­tion from music, art and life per se also flows into my designs. 

Which challenges did you face in developing the Finion collection?

It was quite com­pli­cated to develop Fin­ion, which comes with about 20 ceramic prod­ucts and fur­ni­ture. I cre­ated a free con­cept, based on asso­ci­a­tions with the bath­room and the role it plays in our home and life. Sounds and images, but also the moods and needs of the users. 

How did you transfer that to the products?

I’m a fur­ni­ture designer by nature and nor­mally work with warmer, softer mate­ri­als such as wood, leather and fab­ric. Ceramic, on the other hand, is very hard and smooth and looks cool very quickly – an effect I did­n’t want to have in my bath­room col­lec­tion. So the real chal­lenge was to cre­ate cosi­ness and a feel­ing of soft­ness and warmth even with ceramic. 

How did you solve that?

I cre­ated soft tran­si­tions and devel­oped a flow­ing design with strong con­tours for the wash­basins. To do so, I laid a cloth over the form and trans­ferred the sil­hou­ette of the flow­ing fab­ric to the ceramic. This allowed me to take full advan­tage of the TitanCe­ram mate­r­ial as it enabled me to develop very thin fine forms.  

And how did you “create warmth”?

Mainly with the fur­ni­ture. Warm shades are at the fore, with splashes of gold to add the right touch. I can’t wait to see how experts and con­sumers are going to react to Fin­ion. 

 

Here you will find fur­ther infor­ma­tion about Patrick Frey and Villeroy & Boch. 

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