Tell us more about your new designs for &Tradition.

Henriksen: We have wanted to do a storage collection for many years that can solve this in a beautiful and practical way. This resulted in Trace, a cabinet that acts as a frame for the items placed within it, rather than drawing attention to itself and fits effortlessly into any space.

For the Collect rugs, we wanted to create a subdued soft presence which could be integrated in a minimal way so each rug is woven in a non-directional square pattern, making them highly versatile. Available in muted tones, these rugs are ideal for a space where the rug is not so present from a visual point of view but gives you a softness and richness.

The Collect Hurricane lamp began because we wanted to create an object with a level of detailing and texture so you can put it inside but was rustic and sturdy enough for outdoor. Our job is to encase light and make its presence even more magical, and the Hurricane frames the poetic nature of candlelight.

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What’s a material you’ll never tire of using

Rützou: I think there is a palette of materials that always anchor our work, whether it is wood, stone or leather. The common denominator is the fragility of natural materials which brings a human aspect into the equation, which brings an aspect of experience in the spaces we design.

Henriksen: We recognise the importance of a project’s ability to age in a beautiful manner.Because if your project is only beautiful on the day it was launched or when it was new, then you didn’t really solve the problem. Our philosophy is that if we can do projects and products with a patina that gives its soul over time, that it wears time with beauty then it really fulfils our intention. 

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You’ve described your work as Poetic Modernism, how would you define this?

Rützou: We didn’t formulate this ethos when we began. It’s something that only became apparent later that there was repetition in how we see things. And it became this combination of listening to the world and being pragmatic about it but also saying, look, intuition is very hard to describe.

It’s a feedback system where your senses pivot you towards a sensation. And very often, the more precise description is a metaphor, a poetic equation. Sometimes things cannot be described precisely. So you use a poetic approach to describe the sensation and not the thing in itself.

This is in combination with the disciplines of living in a forward-thinking modern world, being up-to-date and not being overly nostalgic. These are the two elements that we constantly try to balance out. So these two words are descriptive for the two main ingredients that we give importance to when we try to solve something.

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Do you have any upcoming projects in Asia?

Rützou: We’ve actually been working in Tokyo for the past seven years. We’re opening a big hotel right in the Mori Building Corporation in five or six months. We’ll be opening two restaurants in Tokyo. And we have another project in Kyoto with the Mitsubishi family. We’re also doing an urban resort in Seoul which still has four years ahead of it.

We’re enjoying having the opportunity to work in Asia. Even though Europe has a long history, Asian cultures are just so old. There are so many heritage and craft elements and these techniques offer many different possibilities.

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In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges designers face to date?

Henriksen: The world is facing a lot of challenges that also reflect upon our work in many ways. Sustainability and resources and how to go about translating and taking account of all of these things happening in the world, whether that’s a lack of wood because of a war in Ukraine or whether it’s striving to find the most sustainable solutions for projects and to engage with people who are also engaged in these subjects.

Rützou: For me, it’s not so much a moral perspective because that’s liable to change all the time anyway, and historically has. I think one of the really challenging aspects is to ensure that design has relevance because the future is so volatile at the moment, and change is happening at an accelerated speed, it just means being sure that what you’re creating actually has anything to whisper to tomorrow, that it represents relevance beyond the point of origin.

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In dealing with that, it points to two choices. Either you decide to slow down, you create an occasion where you take speed out of the equation, or you go all in on speed. It’s like an either-or thing. If you position yourself in the middle, I don’t think it will be interesting.

So I think it has a lot to do with securing ritual engagement with relevance in terms of providing longevity. Otherwise, you risk creating a circumstance that outlives itself at an alarming speed, and that’s bad for the environment, it’s bad for everyone’s investment, it’s bad for all kinds of things. That, I think, is a real challenge.

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What and who inspires you?

Henriksen: Travel, culture in all its excellence, whether that’s art, music, and films, Of all these, I think that the deepest and greatest of all has always been the travelling, When you travel the world and work outside your own DNA and own surroundings, it mirrors how you see your position in the world and where you come from.

Rützou: I’m very inspired by my partner. Over the years, bringing forth different perspectives and having dialogues, having the ability to travel through the world but look at it differently, but then exchange opinions through a feedback system we have within our structure, has been very beneficial for our work. I think that dialogue that we constantly have is inspiring especially as we have a small office where we sit looking at each other from six to ten hours a day.

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Henriksen: I also think that being a duo allows you to be more brave on certain things. It helps when you have somebody to share your thoughts with, that you’re holding each other’s hands, but at the same time, you’re also pushing each other to move forward all the time.

Rützou: On that note, the reality of life is you’re not one thing constantly and this applies to energy.  Sometimes when I’m low on energy, Signe pulls the ship through, and at other times, its vice versa.

So I think we have the benefit of allowing ourselves also to be fragile and human and just travel through life with all the madness that it entails yet still be able to move our mutual project forward because we’re two - so there’s a lot of benefits that has certainly shaped what we are today. 

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