Object Edit: The Design Launches Defining the Moment
By Ryan Waddoups
Welcome to Object Edit, Galerie’s twice-monthly survey spotlighting the most noteworthy new furnishings, lighting, textiles, and objects debuting around the world. Every month brings a flood of launches, but only a select few distinguish themselves through exceptional craftsmanship, fresh ideas, and a distinctive point of view. Here, we highlight the pieces worth knowing about—and unpack the stories behind them.
Max Lamb Reimagines the Timber Chair With a Single Cut
Max Lamb’s latest endeavor continues an inquiry that has occupied him for years: How little material does it take to make a single chair? He first explored the question in 2020 with the Economy Chair, which transformed simple blocks of polystyrene into seating through a series of diagonal cuts. Now, he has translated that logic into pine with the new Min Chair, developed for Swedish furniture company Hem.
The chair begins with a standard rectangular timber section that Lamb cuts diagonally in half, yielding triangular components that become its legs and side rails—a strategy that allows a single piece of wood to handle the work of two. A small number of pine posts, cut with an ultra-thin Bantor saw, form the legs, seat, and backrest. Adapted from a workshop experiment into a scalable product, the Min Chair stands as the most resolved version of the concept to date. Lamb credits its evolution to his workshop-based practice, which allows him to refine ideas through making and respond to the demands of material and manufacture in real time. “What gives the chair its personality is not necessarily about using as little material as possible,” he says. “Rather, it’s about making one piece of material go twice as far as it otherwise would.”
The Sofa Alex de Betak Couldn’t Find, So He Made It Himself
Since establishing Bureau de Betak in 1990, designer Alexandre de Betak has moved fluidly between disciplines, garnering acclaim for immersive fashion shows that transformed runways into otherworldly fantasias. That same adaptability informs the Takbe, a chameleonic sofa the French designer originally conceived for himself after years of searching for one that suited the way he lived. “I wanted something I could sleep on, eat on, and host on,” he says, “that I could completely reconfigure depending on the moment.” For years, the piece accompanied him from one home to the next. Composed of a low platform scattered with oversized cushions, the Takbe invites endless rearrangement. As configurations change, the piece readily accommodates everything from lounging to entertaining.
De Betak never intended to produce the sofa until he connected with Pierre Bénard, Augustin Deleuze, and Nina Rose, the founders of Pierre Augustin Rose. Their first edition, on view at the French furniture brand’s soaring New York showroom, introduces removable backrests that provide additional support while preserving the sofa’s open-ended character. “I create conditions, not instructions,” de Betak says. “The Takbe is the same. You make it what you need it to be.”
Stefanie Hering Expands Her Porcelain Mastery With Studio M
Stefanie Hering built her reputation through collaborations with some of the world’s most acclaimed chefs thanks to her rigorously crafted porcelain tableware. Now, the Berlin designer’s latest venture extends a decades-long exploration of her favored material into lighting through a spectacular collaboration with Studio M. “I was drawn to Studio M because of their openness and their family spirit,” Hering says. “There’s a real sense of care in how they work, and that allowed us to experiment, refine, and build a collection that feels honest to both our worlds.”
The collection showcases four distinct families that highlights her masterful understanding of ceramic. Ray Dance pairs mouth-blown glass spheres, olives, and lanterns with faceted shades that cast shimmering reflections reminiscent of sunlight on water. Stream features bisque porcelain shades suspended in vertical arrangements of up to 12 pendants, making it especially suited to soaring stairwells and atriums. Burgeon draws on more than 30 years of Hering’s experience with porcelain, translating a flower bud’s delicate contours into lamps, pendants, and sconces. Tropo’s tubular silhouettes change in appearance from different perspectives, while translucent bisque porcelain diffuses a velvety amber glow.
Liam Lee Translates His Painterly Vision Into Performance Textiles
Few contemporary artists move as gracefully between furniture, textiles, and art as Liam Lee. The Brooklyn talent has earned an avid following for sculptural works that transform humble fibers into wondrously textured compositions and alien-like furnishings, earning recognition as a finalist for the 2023 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize. His latest venture takes an unexpected turn into performance textiles through Paint By Numbers, a collection for HBF Textiles that translates his singular approach to color into fabrics designed to mix and match like puzzle pieces. The collection comprises four patterns inspired by Lee’s recent paintings and wide-ranging interests in literature, mythology, and music.
Magic Eye draws on the history of the Jacquard loom and early computer graphics, rendering a dappled, lichen-like surface in richly layered color. Pointillist channels the fin-de-siècle painting movement through hand-selected bouclé yarns that produce luminous color fields. Gridwork references the warp and weft of canvas through textured yarns and contrasting hues, including a vibrant hot pink. Impasto rounds out the collection with a sumptuous velvet whose undulating surface recalls the thick application of paint on canvas. “One of the most rewarding aspects of developing this collection was the color work,” Lee says. “We started at a very granular scale, sometimes with just small yarn samples, and had to envision how a large swath of fabric will look once it’s woven.”
East Fork Founder Alex Matisse Returns to Hand-Painted Pottery
As soon as Alex Matisse began working in clay, he started painting on it. That impulse runs deep—the East Fork founder is the great-grandson of Henri Matisse. Early in his career, he became known for adornment, floral motifs, and geometric patterns, often applied with thick slip to unfired pottery before firing. As East Fork grew from a small studio into a company that now produces nearly one million pieces annually, he stepped away from decorative hand-painting. But he now returns to that foundation with Reverdir, his most personal collection to date. Named after an old French word meaning “to turn green again,” the capsule comprises hand-painted plates, bowls, and serving platters adorned with loose botanical brushwork rendered in olive-toned washes and expressive variations.
“It is a welcoming back of something dormant,” Matisse says, “something that went to sleep but never died, returning full of life and energy and newness.” The collection arrives as East Fork marks its 15th anniversary and continues rebuilding after Hurricane Helene destroyed its workshop studio in 2024. Reverdir feels imbued with that spirit of renewal. “This collection takes many of those older motifs and translates them to brush and pigment,” Matisse says, “welcoming spring, my own return to the workshop, and an enduring fascination with the pot as canvas.”
This article was originally published by Galerie Magazine.