The Playful Logic of Soft Baroque
Shaped by a decade of collaborations with talented designers, Hem’s evolving design language reflects a wide range of perspectives. In this series, we highlight one collaborator each month, exploring their inspirations, creative approach, and what Hem represents to them.
Article and interview by Timothy Small.
Founded in London by Nicholas Gardner and Saša Stucin, Soft Baroque is a creative duo that operates at the intersection of design, art, and architecture. Their work resists easy categorization: furniture becomes a vehicle for experimentation, objects are thought of as art pieces, and familiar forms are often pushed into truly unexpected, surprising territory. Their projects are defined by a distinctive mix of a certain conceptual rigor mixed with a large amount of playful irreverence, and the works of the duo, who both graduated from the Royal College of Art in London, have been exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Etage Projects Gallery in Copenhagen, and many others. In a phone conversation with Nicholas Gardner, we spoke about Soft Baroque’s approach to design, the subtle role of humor in their work, and the challenge of creating objects that sit between an experimental studio practice and the logics of large-scale industrial production.
Timothy: When you started, were you interested in entering the world of product design, of, let’s say, making objects for everyday use, or were you approaching things more as a studio practice?
Nicholas: I wanted to create designs that, in some way, questioned the world we were living in while still functioning as consumer objects. That naturally led us toward one-offs and artworks as part of a studio practice. For us, HEM became a bridge into the world of production. We were interested in how design could operate in a world increasingly divided between extremely cheap, mass-produced products and very high-end pieces. Finding a middle ground, where objects are high quality yet still accessible, is much harder.
Timothy: Another thing that’s interesting to me is that HEM, within the position you’re describing, has always been a very playful brand, often exploring unconventional approaches to design. Which is, to me, totally your thing. Like a match made in heaven.
Nicholas: Yes, I think playfulness is a big part of our work in general. One of the ways we cope with the complexity of the world today is through humor. Humor can sometimes feel like an easy way out, but for us it’s a language that feels natural and comfortable. Usually that means distilling playfulness into something more subtle. It might come through in a slight shift in proportions, or an unexpected combination of materials. The goal is to create something that can endure.
Tim Small: One thing I wanted to ask you about is HEM’s positioning—the idea of bridging design, art, and architecture—which also seems very present in your practice. Where did you find the easiest points of connection between your approach and HEM’s? And where were the more challenging ones?
Nicholas: Communication was actually very easy. Our initial idea for the table was quite simple. But then the project enters a completely different phase, which is how to actually produce it. That’s a complex design challenge in itself: finishes, production processes, tooling, the factories involved.
Timothy: That part can feel a bit like a black box.
Nicholas: Yeah. We don’t necessarily know which factories we’re working with or exactly how they prefer to manufacture things. In many ways, the best designs are the ones where everything aligns, where the idea works naturally with the manufacturing process. Ideally the object has fewer parts, a clear logic, and efficiency in how it’s made.
Timothy: It seems to be quite similar to the approach that you would have if you were producing an art piece, in that you have a design, you draw it, and then there’s a production, which is complicated in it’s own right, but then it’s almost out of your hands. And then it’s just, you have to make sure that it reflects the original spirit of the piece.
Nicholas: Oh yeah, for sure our part is basically just coming up with an idea. From our perspective, we think about our own production, because we produced a lot of our pieces in the workshop.
Timothy: Are we talking about different scales though, or not really?
Nicholas: Yeah, totally, totally.
Timothy: When you work for a brand like HEM, besides the industrial scale, does their, let’s say, positioning? Their ethos, even, does it influence your work in terms of, let’s say, when the work becomes more of a conversation with the brand?
Nicholas: I’d say it’s definitely a conversation. We’ve never really worked with a brand where the process was completely carte blanche. There’s always been an understanding that it’s a collaborative process. A mass-produced object has to meet a lot of criteria, it needs to be feasible to manufacture, and it has to appeal to a certain number of people. In our process, once the initial concept is established, I usually take over the more technical side.
Timothy: Okay, last question. It’s a bit theoretical, maybe even a little silly, but also a serious one. Try answering it as if you were explaining it to an eight-year-old: in what way can design change people’s lives, at the most basic level?
Nicholas: I’m not sure it can be summarized so simply, but I think objects encourage us to behave in certain ways. I often use the example of an uncomfortable chair. Objects can subtly shape our behavior. Even something simple like a sofa can influence how people spend time together. Design can change the way we behave. But there’s also another layer, which is storytelling. Objects can carry stories as well. And I think that’s a real shame.
