DAVID THULSTRUP AT THE
STO FACTORY IN WEIZEN,
GERMANY, WITH THE FIVE
SOFT YELLOW ACOUSTIC
PANELS THAT MAKE
UP HIS ROOM DIVIDERPartition, by Studio David Thulstrup and Sto
Pe a c e pro c e s s
The hardest part of the process, says Danish
architect David Thulstrup, was ‘finding
the right idea’, one that both explored the
properties of the material and responded
to the Wallpaper* Handmade exhibition’s
theme of Wellness + Wonder.
We had paired Thulstrup with Sto,
a German company that makes panelling
with acoustic properties, as well as wall
insulation, rainscreen cladding and render
systems. ‘I felt it was so interesting to work
with this idea of creating a quiet moment
of meditation in space,’ says Thulstrup.
‘I wanted to make something that you
could walk into or pass through – a zonefree of sound.’ Making a whole room was
not really an option, so his solution was to
make an object that represented a room:
a freestanding room divider that you can
‘sit in front of or enclose yourself with’.
We have been tracking Thulstrup’s career
for a while. We visited his first house design
(see W*205) in 2016 and loved his first
furniture collection for Møbel Copenhagen,
not to mention his recently completed
interiors for the new Noma (see W*229).
Given this long experience with private and
retail interiors, and especially for Noma’s
dining spaces, Thulstrup is well-acquainted
with the need for good acoustics. ‘Acousticscan change your experience of a space
completely,’ he says. ‘It is something that
needs to be invested in and taken seriously.’
The Noma project was about ‘materiality’
and working with wood and stone; there
were no white painted walls or ceilings to
conceal acoustic treatments. ‘So we had
to put gaps between the wood on the ceiling
to allow sound to be absorbed.’ With the
Sto surfaces, however, the gaps to soak up
sound are built into the material itself,
so Thulstrup was able to approach his sound
cocoon object differently.
The panels of Thulstrup’s room divider
are made of an acoustic, sound-absorbing »PHOTOGRAPHY: GIAN PAUL LOZZA WRITER: SOPHIE LOVELL
See the
finished exhibition
piece on page 166∑ 147
Making Of...