‘The screen reflects a lot on how we can
create everyday wellness for ourselves’
LEFT, RAW MATERIAL FEEDER
PIPES AT THE STO FACTORY
BELOW, THULSTRUP SPRAYING
THE ACOUSTIC PANELS IN
A TINTED YELLOW BASE COATbackboard that is 90 per cent recycled glass,
sprayed with StoSilent Top Basic, a textured,
sound-permeable, base coat, tinted a soft
yellow colour. The panel finishes are
‘acoustically permeable,’ says Richard Walker,
Sto’s head of international project
management, ‘meaning the sound waves
travel through it easily and are then
“trapped” in the board behind’. The normalapplication of this material is to create
huge, seamless surfaces. It was used, for
example, in Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI museum
in Rome and Jean Nouvel’s Louvre Abu
Dhabi. Architects generally choose this
system because its properties are ‘invisible’
and the panels look like standard plastered
or plasterboard surfaces from a distance.
Thulstrup opted to make the board’s texturedmineral surface the primary feature of the
room divider. The five equal-sized panels
of the piece are framed in anodised
aluminium and hinged. It’s almost Judd-like
in its straightforward simplicity.
Thulstrup says the whole thing took six
weeks from start to finish – two weeks for the
idea and a month to draw and build. Sto was
‘fantastic to work with, highly professional
and efficient’, he says. ‘My biggest concern
with the piece was getting the hinges right
and I am not 100 per cent happy with them.
I wanted them to open 360°, all the way
around, but that would have meant getting
them custom made and there wasn’t time.’
Materials have always been very important
to Thulstrup. In his studio he has a samples
library occupying two aisles, and two big
tables on which to try out combinations
during the design process. ‘The samples
library is the cornerstone of everything
we do. We are constantly researching new
materials and throwing out old ones that
we don’t want to use. Keeping this library in
constant motion is very important and I hope
that we keep it that way. I wouldn’t say that
I have a specific style in my work, but the
main thread is always the combination and
composition of the materials and therefore it
is important that I don’t stagnate in my ideas.’
Despite the imperfect off-the-peg hinges,
Thulstrup is really happy with the finished
screen: ‘I love the simplicity of it, the
monolithic monomateriality of it,’ he says.
‘And I think it is a nice reply to the theme of
this year’s Handmade show in that it reflects
a lot on how we can create everyday wellness
for ourselves. The whole project was a great
challenge in how to work and move fast.’
It is interesting that, in this era of
dematerialising the object and the economy
of space, Thulstrup has designed such a
space-devouring object. Perhaps therein lies
the luxury of this piece, along with the
rawness and honesty of the materials. It’s
an old-fashioned object that is 100 per cent
of our time. A time when it is not so much
our physical modesty that needs shielding
as our poor overloaded senses, and with them
our psyches. This ‘screen’ is not a loud,
demanding gateway, exposing us to more
and more stimulation, but offers instead
a rare, and therefore precious, refuge from
the ubiquitous pollution of sound. ∂
studiodavidthulstrup.com; sto.com148 ∑
Making Of...