The ARNDT Collection is delighted to announce a major commission and presentation of design pieces by internationally acclaimed French-born Mexican based designer Fabien Cappello in collaboration with AGO Projects. For this landmark commission for the ARNDT Residence and Collection, Fabien has been tasked with fitting out the entire domestic residence in Cape Schanck, Australia with a “total design” concept. Due to the generosity of the invitation he was presented with an open canvas to explore ideas and techniques that will continue to influence his output for years. This project includes major design pieces such as sofas, beds, chairs and tables, to lamps, soft furnishing and nuanced interior details.

With this project he continues to explore many of his favourite materials and relationships: coloured glass, woven leather, mosaic tile, woven natural fibres, and screen-printed wood, and how these material palates and textures play off each other to create different feelings or energies. The designer is extremely specific in how the weights of these sometimes contrasting materials balance each other out – he seeks a kind of unclassical symmetry in his alchemy of combinations.

A commission of this scale is not about ticking off boxes and filling space with previously designed objects but is an invitation to make new things and explore new ideas. For instance, the “tatami” represents a significant evolution from an earlier design where now the patterned textile embraces every object surface to create a “mega furniture” in which the entire sitting room, every piece of furniture, and floor are covered in the same gridded industrial grade velvet, creating a volume, almost a building that sits inside the house. The tatami is modular and can be moved and changed but within the established grid that exists both in the textile and in the dimensions of the furniture pieces themselves- almost like oversized soft LEGO blocks.

Throughout the commission he continues to explore his fascination with functional patterns and scale, how patterns can define space, and organise our interaction with objects, affecting their usage and interactions and our relationships. Fabien is almost using pattern as a wayfinding system, where each bedroom presents a similar scale and usage of pattern to indicate: bedroom. It's both funny and reassuring. There is a great deal of structure where nothing is not considered but there is also always room for chance and an unexpected outcome.

Fabien Cappello’s work is rooted in collaboration with local Mexican makers, he is often responding to a material he encounters at a local Guadalajara market, or in use in a straightforward application he encounters on frequent walking city safaris- he loves to elevate what is seen as quotidian to the appreciable. He both consciously and unconsciously wants to break through our established ideas of what material luxury and value are. He balances rigour with humour and provocation- developing his textiles with a manufacturer that is known for outfitting buses rather than homes of collectors and aesthetes- all along the way he wants to challenge our preconceived and frequently erroneous ideas of what is “good”.

ABOUT THE DESIGNER
Fabien Cappello (born in Paris, France 1984) runs a furniture and product design studio based in Guadalajara, Mexico. The studio focuses on delivering appropriate and sensible material solutions to shape limited and unlimited-edition products as well as public and private environments. He is represented by Ago Projects (Mexico City) and his clients include Material Art Fair (Mexico City), Coachella Music and Arts Festival (California), and Hem (Stockholm).

He is also the founder of a daily utility goods brand named OBJETOS DE HOJALATA PARA EL HOGAR. Watering cans, buckets, flower vases, and other home goods are made of rolled galvanised steel in a traditional workshop based in the centre of Guadalajara. The collection is sold worldwide in a large selection of retails that includes: Jasper Morrison Shop (London), PanAfter (Sydney), and AtaW (Japan).

In his studio, Fabien uses design to make his visions and strategies tangible: "My work is trying to propose a non-aspirational aesthetic, that relates to a new order of values" Cappello states "It means using elements of vernacular culture, materials or techniques that are overlooked or little considered, but that are relevant solutions. It’s never about mimicking but about trying to make durable and culturally significant objects that fit places and people".

Through his active design work but also through his published investigations about Mexican material culture such as "Sillas Callejeras" and "Objetos de Resistencia", his design studio has become an influential reference for international contemporary design. His work is part of major international Museum permanent collections such as the SFMOMA in San Francisco California, The Denver Museum of Contemporary Art in Colorado, and the National Centre for the Arts (CNAP) in Paris, France. In 2024, Fabien staged an individual exhibition in Villa Noailles, where he presided over THE YOUNG PRACTITIONER CONTEST JURY AS WELL AS THE Design Parade festival.