VAUST

Design & Architecture

13 November 2026

Design & Architecture

VAUST

13 November 2026

Image: Clement Poloczek

Q: VAUST is very strongly associated with Berlin. What is it about the city that has shaped the way you think about design?

A: Berlin taught that unfinished can be a quality. The city never really tries to impress you, it lets you discover. Raw concrete next to a perfectly restored facade, a club in a former power plant, a gallery inside a church. That coexistence of rawness and precision is something we carry into every project. Berlin also gave us the freedom not to be categorized. Nobody here expects you to stay in one discipline, and that permission to drift between interior, object and art has defined how VAUST works from day one.

Q: In your projects, an object often exists somewhere between furniture, sculpture, and a functional piece. Where do you draw the line between design and art?

A: We try not to draw it too sharply. For us the line sits where a piece starts to ask something of you instead of only serving you. Function might be there, it's just not the headline. We are more interested in the tension between both worlds than in deciding which side something belongs to. If an object makes someone hesitate for a second before using it, that hesitation is where it gets really interesting.

Image: Clement Poloczek

Image: Nicolas Quiniou

Q: What matters most to you in an object: its function, material, form, or the emotion it evokes?

A: Emotion, but it never comes on its own. It's the result of material and form and function being honest with each other. Material is usually where we start. How a surface ages, how stone feels cold in the morning, how steel shows every fingerprint. Form follows from what the material wants to do, not the other way around. function is the baseline, an object that doesn't work is just an expensive pain.

"But what stays with people is the feeling. a piece should have presence in a room even or even especially when nobody is using it."

Image: Clement Poloczek

Q: How do you balance experimentation with the need to create something that is genuinely functional and comfortable to use?

A: Experimentation is never the goal itself, it's how we find out what an object can become. we prototype, sit on things, live with them in the studio. some ideas die and that's fine. comfort is also not the same as softness. a stone bench can be comfortable if proportion and height are right. we usually push a concept as far as it can go. there is something about finding beauty in discomfort.

Q: Do commercial constraints ever lead you to more interesting design solutions?

A: Often, yes. Constraints force decisions and decisions create character. A tight budget makes you question every single element, and very often the reduced version turns out to be the stronger one. A short timeline for a pop-up pushes you to think in systems instead of single pieces. Honestly, unlimited freedom is a rumor. When everything is possible, nothing feels necessary. The brief, the budget, the space, they are all material to work with. there’s a line tho, eventually it becomes very unromantic.

Image: Clement Poloczek

Q: What do you think designers are doing too much of today?

A: Designing for the image. Some designing only the image. Too many things are made to look good on a screen for three seconds and then nothing stays. There is also a lot of reference recycling, the same typology, the same odd folded aluminium side table everywhere. and maybe too much explaining. A good object or space doesn't need a long text to justify itself. We'd love to see more patience, more research and more courage to leave things out.

Q: Are there any places in Berlin that you keep coming back to?

A: The Neue Nationalgalerie maybe. Mies' hall is a lesson in reduction we keep returning to, and every show changes how that space feels. Also cannot wait to see Boros again!