Hospitality Design - Marketplace Fall 2022 - 54

products profi le
By Alia Akkam
Photos by Damian Miranda and courtesy of Rottet Studio
CLASS ACT
Lauren Rottet brings her polished aesthetic to her product designs
Lauren Rott et was enthralled by Houston's skyscraper boom in the early 1980s. " Watching all those tall buildings
go up so fast was fascinating, " the designer recalls. When she had the chance to peek inside a few of them, she says
she was " disappointed by how unatt ractive they were. " Eventually tasked with the interiors for several of these
high-rises herself, Rott et vowed to transcend the bland spaces she glimpsed previously.
Rott et's fi rst brush with architecture was as a child, when the Waco, Texas native built litt le houses out
of rocks for horned toads, a passion that was nurtured-aſt er a false start in pre-med and art studies-at the
University of Texas at Austin. Aſt er working for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in Chicago and Los Angeles,
where she cofounded a design practice, Rott et launched her eponymous Houston studio in 2008 (she now counts
offi ces in New York and LA) moving between the residential, hospitality, retail, and offi ce realms.
In 2017, she unveiled the Rott et Collection, a range of furniture and lighting suited to her minimal, lyrical
rooms infl uenced by the Light and Space movement. There is the sculptural Artis swivel chair swathed in mohair,
for instance, as well as the marble-clad Walking Bench, whose angled legs give the illusion of taking an elegant
stroll. There's also the Dichroic side table fashioned out of metal oxide-tinged sheets of glass to refract light and a
20th-century-inspired ratt an sett ee.
No matt er what object or space is in front of her, Rott et knows the design will ultimately refl ect " a solid thought
that I have in my mind, " she explains, singling out her Float chair as an example. Melding solid walnut and acrylic,
it was born from the notion that " people don't really think about a chair before they sit in it. I thought it would be
interesting to create something that someone had to look at and wonder: 'Can I sit in this? Will it hold me?' "
Like her architecture and design projects-which currently include a San Francisco residential tower
and hotel properties in Austin, Milwaukee, and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin-Rott et's products are imbued with
a sense of movement and discovery, and she views all of them as hand-numbered collectibles. They harken
back to a time, she adds, when buying furniture was a commitment-when it was " a litt le more handmade, a
litt le more precious. " hd
ROTTETSTUDIO.COM; ROTTETCOLLECTION.COM
A play on sculptural forms, the Artis chair is upholstered in mohair, while
the accompanying pouf features a backside and pull in supple leather
054
Crafted from Carrara marble, the Walking Bench
flaunts angled legs that extend through the seat
Marketplace Fall 2022 hospitalitydesign.com
http://www.ROTTETSTUDIO.COM http://www.ROTTETCOLLECTION.COM http://www.hospitalitydesign.com
Hospitality Design - Marketplace Fall 2022

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