Alessi, Driade and Moooi will confirm it: Roderick Vos is one of the greats. A Dutch design studio which believes in functionality as opposed to the concept of design for design’s sake.
Roderick Vos is not only a trade name. Behind the two words there hides an exceptional designer who, together with his wife Claire Teewen, created the Roderick Vos Studio in 1990.
The studio’s philosophy is based on simplicity and honesty, approaches far removed from conceptual or arty perspectives.
After studying industrial design at the prestigious Eindhoven Design Academy, the couple decided to launch their most personal project: their new, recently-opened, headquarters in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, a city located in the south of the Netherlands, which also goes by the name of Den Bosch.
An old two-storey hospital houses the new showroom, which adjoins the design office and provides customers with easy access to the entire creative design process.
Conceived as a gallery, an idea laboratory, a warehouse and a shop, the new showroom is surprising in its form and substance. It contains some of his most iconic works: the spectacular constructivist Montigny Dresser, the sculptural and poetic Kiyo tap and the design of Atlantis, a bowl which is organic in nature. Roderick Vos says that good design should be able to explain itself; it does not need any explanations or excuses and should be at the service of our daily needs.
We can also find one of his most emblematic pieces here: Bucketlight, the ceiling cachepot with light included which symbolises everything the designer duo stand for. It is defined by a poetic flourish and an innovative, useful, design: two in one, you might say.
The objective of the new showroom is to dissolve the boundaries between customer and designer, work and leisure, professional and informal. This objective has been more than achieved in this unique setting.
Photography: Rene van der Hulst
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