Sofia Lagerkvist and Anna Lindgren, Guest of Honor of the Stockholm Furniture Fair 2023, talk about their installation for the fair, in which they will show the results of the Design by nature research conducted in the woods where they grew up

Sofia Lagerkvist and Anna Lindgren, together since 2003 as Front, are the Guest of Honour of the Stockholm Furniture Fair 2023.

For the occasion, the Swedish duo based in Stockholm has created an installation in the entrance hall of the fair, with Pebble Rubble furnishings made with Moroso , seats that look like boulders covered in moss and snow, the result of a long journey of naturalistic investigation conducted in the forest where the creative couple grew up.

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Le Front talk about their installation for the Stockholm Furniture Fair 2023

“The starting point for the Stockholm fair installation is our ongoing research Design by nature.

In this investigation, we record not only the dimensions and physical properties of nature, but also its atmosphere. We 3D scanned entire areas in different outdoor environments, and used these shapes to bring furniture elements to life.

With this installation we want to recreate an atmosphere of nature, and at the same time we want the installation to give the public the opportunity to 'dive' into our sketch book, to see more closely and understand the our design process".

At the center of the installation, the Pebble Rubble furniture collection produced by Moroso

"The center of the exhibition is an installation that revolves around the pieces of the Pebble Rubble collection that we designed for Moroso, whose stone-shaped silhouettes recall those of the boulders present in nature.

As children in our native Sweden, our playground was the forest, where we imagined fallen trees, rocks and mosses as furniture and places where we could sit and rest.

For Pebble Rubble, we 3D scanned rocks that we saw during our many walks in the woods, and we put these organic shapes together and turned them into furniture.

For the Stockholm fair, we have developed videos, images, sketches and paintings of our research and creative process, and we will exhibit them in a path that will create different landscapes and atmospheres.

The Pebble Rubble pieces are upholstered with the Arda textile collection we made for Kvadrat: Arda is a knitted upholstery fabric that recreates complex shapes, structures, surfaces and shades found in nature.

The colors express the experience that one can have in various natural environments typical of Swedish forests, such as snowy landscapes and lake shores”.

Le Front recount the naturalistic investigation Design by nature, which began in 2017 and is still ongoing

“We love creating projects that come to life from research which then unfolds and grows in unexpected ways.

We want all our pieces to have a direct expression, but often, behind the visible form, there is a story to tell about the process, the material or the context in which the product was born.

Design by nature is a research that we carry out in collaboration with experts in various fields, including specialists in animals found in our forests, such as bears, cockroaches, crickets, amoebas and beavers.

The investigation then turned into a project: from the exploration of shapes, traces, structures and material surfaces existing in uncontaminated nature, observing from microorganisms invisible to the naked eye to large mammals, we moved on to the design of furniture, objects and fabrics clearly inspired by natural phenomena.

We often design looking at nature, it is the source of all our creativity, and we are always interested in introducing unpredictable elements into our process".

Le Front tell the beneficial effects of nature on man

“During our research, we read a study that shows how being in nature has positive effects on the well-being of memory and creativity.

We've found reports of how blood pressure drops and stress vanishes when you're out in the green, how the learning curve starts to climb after regular forest walks, and how you heal faster if you have a tree outside your window when you are hospitalized".

From experimental design to mass production

"We like to discuss topics and themes that interest us and research them. We like to look at other professions and see how we can 'borrow' knowledge from different fields and introduce it into our creative process .

Ever since we started our design studio, we have been working inspired by nature in many ways.

During the Design by nature project we created pieces of artistic research, gallery pieces for Moroso's More-so experimental division, furnishings intended for production and a textile collection for spaces public, very different proposals but with the same underlying idea.

We think it is very interesting to work in a vast field of design, and the way in which the projects influence each other is profitable".

The Fronts anticipate (a little) what they will bring to the Milan Furniture Fair 2023

“We hope that our exhibition in Stockholm will give the audience the feeling of 'immersing' in one of our sketchbooks.

We'll be showcasing the projects, while also revealing a little bit about the process and inspiration. For the Salone del mobile di Milano 2023 we will continue to work in this direction.

For example, with Moroso we will continue to explore and create pieces around the Pebble Rubble system in order to introduce the characteristics of nature into the collection".