Hospitality Design - March/April 2015 - 75

products

proﬁle

autoban
By JoAnn Greco
Photography courtesy of Autoban

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BOUNDARY
CROSSING
A multidisciplinary Turkish studio is on the
expressway to global success

From interior architecture for a new
airport in Baku, Azerbaijan, to settings
for restaurants in St. Petersburg, Madrid,
and Hong Kong, Istanbul-based design
studio Autoban has gradually expanded
its placemaking oeuvre beyond its native
Turkey. Now, it's arriving in the U.S.
The firm's early work on cafés and hotels
for a local hospitality group "set the base
for us to understand commercial public
spaces," says principal Seyhan Özdemir,
an architect who met design partner Sefer
Çağlar, an interior designer, when the two
were students at Istanbul's Mimar Sinan
Fine Arts University. With an approach that
emphasizes layering and experimentation,
it was natural the two would soon turn to
product design.
"We contemplate space at all scales, from
macro to micro," says Özdemir. "In doing so,
we design project-specific products or use
existing ones from our signature collection,
which become the main characters that
develop the story." The firm now has more

than 120 such products-chairs, tables,
sofas, beds, bookcases, and lighting-in its
portfolio, sold at approximately 60 locations
worldwide. Many pieces take their cues from
classic furniture-often they're infused with
a midcentury vibe of exposed wood frames;
other times they pay homage to the forms of
Eames or Breuer.
But the influences are even wider.
"The Deco sofa is inspired by the Ottoman
divans," Özdemir says. "It's a contemporary
adaptation where the wooden panels look
like they are just there to hold the cushions
together." A recent favorite, the Cloud
table, is an oversized engineered wood (or
marble) table that evolved out of the organic
geometrics of clouds, Özdemir explains. "Its
design process was a systematic assembly of
elliptical circles in alternating sizes that lent
its unique structural shape."
The Bauhaus is always present as
detailed in a recent monograph devoted to
their work titled Autoban: Form. Function.
Experience. Even the name Autoban is
recognition of the German word for highway,
itself derived from the Turkish equivalent,
otoban. The name, says Özdemir, "crossed
boundaries." And as they've done just
that, they've grown. Autoban is now some
35-employees strong, a mélange of architects
and interior and product designers.

1. Sefer Çaglar
and Seyhan Özdemir,
founders of Istanbulbased Autoban design
studio.

2. The organic
geometrics of its
namesake inspired the
Cloud table.
3. The Deco sofa
emphasizes clean
shapes.

A residency in New York's DDC
showroom that opened in October-the
city's architecture and design month-was
aimed at garnering more attention for the
company in the U.S. And at Maison & Objet
in Paris in January, the designers unveiled
a new collection of products that Özdemir
promises will be a "big departure-the result
of our constant experimenting with new
materials and forms." And, she adds, there
will be collaborations with other brands,
such as its capsule glassware collection for
Turkish glassmaker Sisecam.
"We are looking for new ways and
mediums to apply our design approach," says
Özdemir. "We believe Autoban can design
what we all use in our daily lives." hd
aut ob an21 2.com

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