Staffan Holm’s design studio near Älvsborg Bridge in Gothenburg is housed in a former boiler room with enormous windows facing in three directions. On the shelf behind his work table are models, sketches, and some of his works. Observing these objects and images next to each other, one is struck by the breadth of his design style. Compare, for example, his Milk Stool, which resembles one’s mental image of a milk stool, to his glass-sculptured Anamorph objects, whose shapes are fleeting and indefinable.

Certainly, some of his works are stylistically related, but it is the exploratory way that he works that defines him as a designer, rather than any particular style. Holm’s starting point is the material and the technique rather than any idea about form. It’s an approach that may be less common among designers than craftsmen, but furniture making is also in his background.

Staffan Holm has a master’s degree from the Academy of Design and Crafts at the University of Gothenburg, and has won numerous prizes, including a Swedish EDIDA Chair Award, two Elle Decoration Swedish Design Awards (2017, 2014), a Wallpaper Design Award (2017), and a Bruno Mathsson Award (2013). He has exhibited at Artipelag (2013) and at the Röhsska Museum (2011), among other venues.