Talking Design With: kaschkasch Design Studio
Kaschkasch’s unusual name originated from the designers’ last names Kallus and Schneider, “and then repeated twice, so it sticks better,” Florian smiles. “We started kaschkasch right after school as complete greenhorns,” he tells us. Today, their studio is based in a Cologne backyard, where there used to be a saddlery.
To celebrate their 5 year anniversary, the two German designers set up an exhibition at the Ruttikoswki 68 gallery in Cologne, showcasing their work to date, which opens this week. “It is a lot of fun to realize this exhibition and to bring all the projects together and go through the stuff we have done during the design and development process,” Florian tells us. “I'm very much looking forward to see all the furniture and lighting, we have realized within the last 5 years.”
Cap lamp was the first product designed by kaschkasch for Normann Copenhagen.
Their design aesthetic can be described as a mix of function and emotion, offering clean shapes with well thought-out details. “I'm very much interested in simple solutions for complex requirements,” Florian explains. “The Cap lamp is a good example of our design approach,” he says while turning the lamp shade to direct the light.
After kaschkasch and Normann Copenhagen met at Salone Satellite in Milan in 2012, it took two years to finalize the design of the lamp. “We are still very happy with this project,” Florian concludes, “...could be a classic in a few years!”
Blush coloured Cap lamp standing on a dusty green Block table.
“Designing lamps differs a lot from designing furniture. With lighting it’s much more about creating an atmosphere and emotions,” Sebastian tells us. “When designing a lamp, we focus extremely much on thinking about how the light will fall and how shadows are cast,” he goes on explaining.
When they began designing the lamp in 2012, the original idea was inspired by a comic character called Kalimero, a young chicken that wears an egg shell on its head like a cap. Sebastian says: “For me, inspiration is really often more like a process and not a particular moment… I get my inspiration mostly while sketching. I want to sketch a chair – the result is a bed,” he laughs.
The Cap lamp evolving during the design process.
Kaschkasch's Cap lamp in their 5 year exhibition at Ruttkowski 68 in Cologne.
In October, Normann Copenhagen presented kaschkasch’s new mirror design at Maison & Objet in Paris. The beguiling mirror series comes in varying geometric shapes with a steel shelf integrated into the design.
The shelf serves as a practical place to put things on, and at the same time create a beautiful visual effect. “It is a playful, and somehow poetic, experience to see the duplication in the mirror,” the design duo says.
The Horizon mirror comes in three sizes, all with integrated steel shelves.
Horizon wall mirror with white Amp lamps.
