Interview with Richard Wassmann

Richard Wassmann is an interior architect and product designer and is a partner of the Bachmann Wassmann Planer AG. He is engaged in architectural and interior design, as well as product development. Alongside furniture designs, his work focuses on the conversion and furnishing of buildings. For the Swiss Bigla Office furniture company he created the “lean” table with its purist design that lends it a unique appearance of visual lightness.

Mr. Wassmann “lean” is designed extremely puristic. What was your inspiration for this?
Richard Wassmann: The design of a new product is always the outcome of a longer process. The visual lightness of the table emerged from a concentration on the essential. One may detect that we used some unconventional solutions. The table frame for instance consists of two side trestles, screwed to the top. The top is only 4mm thick with bonded edgings for enhanced stability. There is a choice of different surface finishes for the panel, including melamine, natural wood veneer, linoleum or aluminium, and the edgings allow users to attach various accessories such as a cable duct or a screen.

Being an architect, do you approach the design of a product
differently?
Richard Wassmann: Yes, as an architect I always look at the overall arrangement of a room – the furniture has to fit into it. “lean” can be used both in private and office spaces and thus be adapted to the various work space requirements through a choice of different surfaces and accessories. Most of the furniture designs that we realise at our studio are solutions for specific architecture projects. New solutions often emerge from the specific requirements that we have to overcome in a given project.

Who are your role models in design?
Richard Wassmann: Jean Prouvé, for example, whom I appreciate for being a great engineer. Other designers from the Bauhaus period too have impressed me with their innovations and the boldness of their sharply defined, technical solutions that are as modern and selfsufficient today as back then.