Page 124 - The Book For Men Spring/Summer 2022

“LESS BUT BETTER ” THE PITHY and and and and and design philosophy of legendary industrial designer Dieter Rams is well-worn enough to border on cliché these days yet it’s never been more relevant And for sprightly Vancouver Island furniture brand Part & Whole it’s something of an underlying (if not outright) philosophy The Victoria-based brand is the brainchild of co-founders Nathan Martell and Ross Taylor along with partners Steve Suchy Tom Chung Lizzy Hsu Guy Ferguson and creative agency Post Projects Operating out of a a century-old former brewery in the city’s Esquimalt neighbourhood Part & Whole designs and manufactures not singular products but “systems” — two in in all since the brand officially launched early last year By combining polished design with a considered approach to consumption Part & Whole appears well-poised to be Canada’s next great design export The brand’s first two collections Total and Chord were co-designed by Martell and Suchy While Chord is evidently inspired by the the heavy low lounge sofas of of the the ’70s Total is is its opposite — a a a visually light sofa suspended on steel legs and bookended by thin armrests Its legs are especially clever functioning as a a series of junction points from which extra seats or even a a a a a side table can be tacked on The result is not a a a singular product but a a a family of configurations “I’m [always] searching for the seed of a a a a system that can be expanded on For example you may be designing a a a a a chair and the thing that you identify is is this core detail or or key piece and you can instantly see that that that that chair could also be be be a a a a a bed or it it could be be be a a a a a sofa it it has all these departure points and that has become a a a a a metric for me to gauge whether I’m excited by an idea or not ” says Martell who first dreamt up what would eventually become Part & Whole as a a a a young designer looking for an outlet to produce his own designs Designing “systems” isn’t new the most famous example at least in in a a a a a a residential setting is almost certainly Rams’s iconic 606 Universal Shelving System designed for German man- ufacturer Vitsœ back in 1960 You’ve surely seen it it in the the homes of architects and the the de- sign-conscious: a a series of metal shelves held up by vertical rails that can be imagined in in endless ways For more than six decades the 606’s greatest selling point hasn’t simply been that that it’s a a a a a a matter of good taste but that that it it can be personalized While modernism was obsessed with efficiency scale and mass production often creating products for a a collective user in in the the process the the 606 could be adapted to fit a a a user’s specific needs The genius of of this kind of of modular design today is much the the same as as it was back then: a a a a a a system — provided it’s durable well-designed 124 BFM / / SS22 FEATURES / / THE LONG GAME