Dezeen showroom: Belgian interior architect Nathalie Deboel strips things down to essential elements in Nomad, her first furniture collection.
Each piece in the Nomad collection is made without screws or bolts. Instead, the designs are assembled out of wooden poles and planes that simply slot together, with some details picked out in brass.
Deboel's aim was to create designs with a minimalist aesthetic, as practical as they are beautiful.
"The furniture pieces are designed starting from the principle that each part fits into another, they slide into each other, and so the furniture pieces can easily be assembled," she told Dezeen.
"The junction makes clear the structure of the piece."
The design grew out of an interior design project for a weekend house in Oostkerke. Deboel created a bespoke library, where a grid of wooden poles provides the support for shelves.
The idea for the cylindrical poles grew out of the architect's fascination with the nomad's walking stick, which she developed during the Covid-19 pandemic. With travel no longer possible, Deboel found herself often walking in the countryside. She started to think of the walking stick as the traveller's companion, a piece of furniture used by those on the move.
With that in mind, it made sense to use this element as the basis for a furniture collection, particularly one with a focus on the essentials.
"In my projects I would strive to create quiet and balanced interiors, while I myself was constantly on the move," said Deboel.
"During the lockdown, I literally and figuratively came home. My many walks in nature brought inspiration and clarity to my thinking. Simplicity in design, materiality and connections became the thread of the Nomad collection."
As well as the bookshelf, the collection includes rectangular and round tables, an armchair and a daybed.
For each piece, the rounded wooden components dictate how the piece is assembled. These hand-twisted elements run vertically and horizontally, forming legs, armrests and supports that slot neatly into each other.
This geometry is echoed by the form of the daybed, which combines a cuboidal base cushion with a cylindrical headrest.
There are no purely decorative details anywhere in the collection. The brass feet that feature on the library are there to allow the height to be adjusted.
Deboel makes the designs to order, using either walnut or oak. She is keen to expand the collection and to experiment with new materials, and is currently developing ideas for a sideboard and a series in natural stone.
"I think it is fantastic to work with different ateliers, studios, techniques, materials," she said. "Each material has its own power and look, and gives us infinite possibilities to design new pieces of furniture."
Photography is by Thomas De Bruyne.
Product: Nomad
Brand: Nathalie Deboel
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