AKZ Can you share a bit about your background, and did you always want to be an artist?
ASR My dad is a doctor, and my mom was actually a pharmacist and took care of us, so I wasn’t exactly part of a creative household.
But I went to a art school for kids and was always into crafts— I would draw my dream house, I loved Legos, I loved building stuff.
And then as I got older I decided I’m gonna be an architect. I was even considering engineering, and it's my father that actually saw how happy I was drawing and pushed me towards architecture. The studies in Belgium were fantastic, because the first concept given to us was is architecture art?
There was a lot of emphasis on concept, and I understood architecture as a great marriage between structure and the expression of an idea or aesthetics.
Eventually I moved from architecture into interior design, and then started the furniture design company two years ago. So I’ve really been trickling down in terms of scale.
AKZ What elements of architecture and interior design are you glad to be shedding now that you have a furniture studio?
ASR Architecture requires a lot of patience and a big team, and I didn’t have that kind of patience. And interior design is great and I still love it and still do it, but I did feel a need to be more hands on and make things myself.
I was also a bit frustrated with finding the right projects, and finalized projects never getting built, so there was definitely a desire to be in control of the final product.
AKZ At what point did you move to New York?
ASR After school I worked for seven years as an architect. Then I got an opportunity at Louis Vuitton’s in-house architecture department, and that was much more fast-paced, bigger budgets, and a combination of architecture and interior design.
And it's when I left there that I moved to New York, which is 10 years ago. I worked in an inter interior design firm, then I got fired— it was just not a good match— and then started having interior design projects of my own. Then halfway in I started having these ideas for House of Roro.
AKZ How long did it take from that idea to launching the first product?
ASR It probably took one to two years between that first idea and the birth of House of RoRo. I started thinking about it when Iggy was a year and a half and would soon need a chair.
AKZ Before that, while doing interior design, did you ever design your own collections?
ASR No, but I was very excited about doing something that was not for a client and didn't have to go through 17 opinions, to then become some kind of compromise. Which is not always the case and depends on a project, depends on the client, but it often is the case.
So I had the desire for a creative project that didn't feel controlled and was very much an expression of my ideas.
AKZ And lend more immediate results as well.
ASR Yeah, very much. Its really what I loved as a kid, which was making stuff, drawing, doing things with my hands.
AKZ What was the first step in creating House of RoRo.
ASR When I started prototyping, I didn’t know how to build furniture, so I decided to design, and then have somebody else make it.
But then I realized the cost of that, specially if I wanted to make it in New York or local, and that's when I landed on the puzzle-like slotted system. The process came about as a practical response, but also lent a very creative design process.
AKZ Is that when you landed on plywood as well?
ASR When I landed on the CNC’d, flat-packed puzzle system, plywood became the logical choice.
But what’s also great about the plywood is that it becomes a type of blank canvas waiting to be transformed. And that's what we did with the Animal Tales collection.
AKZ How has your vision for the studio evolved over time?
ASR In terms of the brand and the story, the vision's very much consistent because it's so anchored in me and my aesthetic. It's naturally evolving without having much of a predetermined direction. I just feel there's a lot of potential to explore different materialities and products. But even in just sticking to our current system, there's a lot more to be done. I think it’s actually nice to have restrictions when creating.
I do wish I had more of a vision business-wise.
AKZ I love that you mentioned restrictions. Sometimes when there’s no parameters its difficult to explore any one concept deeply.
ASR And you can lose the story as well.
AKZ Can you share more about how you discovered Animal Tales?
ASR I've always had a crush on leopard spots. I also love these very blurry watercolor paintings by Rop Van Mierlo, they’re like color blotches that look like animals. I actually reached out to him to see if he would collaborate, but never got an answer.
Rop Van Mierlo
I also love Giacomo Balla. He does these very 2D, beautiful, futuristic graphic paintings. And he has painted on his furniture before and done a vanity set in leopard print that I saw it in a museum in Italy. Its not so conscious, but I think these references sort of hung out in the back of my mind and suddenly came up somehow. I also had a painted sample laying on my desk for forever.
Giacomo Balla
Once I decided I would paint on furniture myself, I created a deadline, and started with the whole fauna, flora, animal world patterns. I had images and references and ideas kept pouring out of me. If I hadn’t given myself a deadline we probably would’ve added more and more and never actually launched.
The leopard spots and the zebra stripes are the most popular ones. We also did a version where we can write the name of the child in a snail trail. The Caterpillar one is so time-consuming to make that I hoped it wouldn’t sell, and it never really sold.
AKZ I once had to close the studio for a few weeks so I hoped no one would buy Paintbrush Holders during that time, and no one did. The day after I got back, they started selling again.
ASR So funny, right?
AKZ I think that stuff works for sure.
ASR Well, clearly.
AKZ What motivated you to make it into a brand? You started wanting to create a chair for Iggy, and could’ve just stopped there.
ASR It was probably not knowing what it is to have a business, otherwise I would've never done it. I would've been too scared, and I didn't realize that I would not make any money in the beginning.
But what motivated me was people’s encouragement, as well as the desire to have something very much my own, and that could create financial independence. And also a bit of, I'm 40 years old, if not now, when?
AKZ Can you share more about your design process?
ASR I often start with an idea and conceptualize it. I then sketch and make little cardboard models. It's kind of funny because everything is 2D, I render anything or go into CAD.
Sometimes I even go from my idea to the CNC drawings, and I think that's where my architectural background kind of just dominates.
I also love feedback. I love to test my ideas, and if I'm hesitating, I'll make two sketches, or Photoshop something, or make two little models, and get feedback from anybody that wants to listen.
AKZ Can you share a bit about your Underwater Weaving collaboration?
ASR We first agreed that it’d be cool to have a table with a basket, and started throwing ideas around. I was very much driving the design of the table, and Erin was the sounding board— it was really nice to bounce ideas off her. In the end I showed three options for a table shape, and she picked the flower one. I was more of the designer and her role was curatorial.
When we worked with PORTA it was different. They reached out wanting something for their kids collection, and that was it. I put some concepts together, they shortlisted two, and then I developed the pieces.
AKZ What is key for a good collaboration?
ASR Definitely communication, and understanding what each others role is upfront. Not just in terms of the design, but also how you lay out the collaboration financially.
I've been lucky trough to work with nice people, but also, if you don’t get along with a brand or a person, don't look to collaborate with them in the first place.
AKZ Trusting your intuition.
ASR Yeah, always. Also, surround yourself with people you enjoy, respect, and admire.
AKZ What part do you enjoy most about running House of Roro?
ASR Creating this universe and living in it. It’s very much something that I have inside of me that I want to let out, and I love that it came from a childlike playfulness.
I also love photography and creating content around the work, like our Friends of Roro shoots, where we go to people's homes to talk and stage furniture there with the kids.
AKZ Has motherhood influence your creative process in any way?
ASR Since before I had Iggy, I never liked how, when people have kids, their homes all of a sudden are overgrown by kids stuff.
So it's more about Iggy needing a chair and me needing storage to hide all his toys, and then coming up with solutions.
When designing I do really take him into account. He’s very creative and imaginative, soI’m trying to think of a project or an object we can make together.
We're also working with an artist in Australia who works a lot with his own childhood drawings, and incorporates them in his art. He also will lay a canvas on the floor and have his kids walk over it and play with the paint for a second, and then he reworks that.
AKZ How do you deal with creative block?
ASR I either step away and give it some time and space, or set a deadline and force myself to get it done. The pressure is better for productivity than it is for creativity, but its good for pushing through.
Giving things more time can work with or against you. It’s nice to step back and revisit, but at some point you can't revisit an idea too many times because then your opinion will have evolved and you’ll never finish.
AKZ How do you envision these pieces growing with their user?
ASR These are not toys, they're furniture, so they shouldn’t be disposable in the way that toys are. And it’s too often the case that people look at the kids furniture as something temporary. These are pieces you can move around the space and use in different ways, there’s no age to them per se.
AKZ It's almost like you have two different audience. The kid that has to be interested in the piece, and the parent who has to want it in their home.
ASR What I love about furniture is that it’s very functional, so I don't have to deal with the harsh judgments of kids in the same way that a toy company does. In a very basic level, it just has to fulfill its function.
To then appeal to kids, we first of all make it the right size and comfortable.
For example, the box table with lids are great because for the parent, in just one motion they sweep all the stuff from the table into the legs. But for kids too, the fact that they can interact with the storage while they're sitting at the table is fun and gives them agency.
When designing pieces, I want to make sure there’s interaction and playfulness baked into the actual shape. And the leopard spots, to be honest, are mostly for the moms. They crush on it.
AKZ What's some great advice you've received that you would like to pay forward?
ASR Definitely to take risks. Not stupid risks, but to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. And whatever you end up doing, have fun with it.
AKZ Awesome.
ASR Voila.
AKZ Voila.
