In Conversation with

Dukta

Based in Zürich, Switzerland, the father and son team behind Dukta has been experimenting with and pushing the boundaries of wood - testing the material’s stability and flexibility in a decades-long experiment to push the material beyond its traditional form and function.

In 2006, during a training course led by Serge Lunin, Christian Kuhn had the idea to create a lounger made from curved wooden elements. Together they tested alternatives including steam bending and gluing layers together but found that certain arrangements of incisions gave the wood a great deal of flexibility.

Dukta, now run by Serge and Pablo Lunin, works with licensed partners around the world. We sat down to chat with the father and son team about the evolution of their Flexible Wood collection, the significance of sustainability to their work, and the design trends that are exciting them now.

Read our full interview with Dukta below, or scroll down to watch!

What inspires you and where do you look for inspiration?

Serge: I have been working as a mediator/lecturer in the field of art and design for over 30 years. In my experience, a playful and experimental approach to work with materials can be a great source of inspiration. I try to teach in my courses an open dialogue with the material by simultaneously considering its physical properties. For each wood-type and wood based material the conditions are different. To engage with, considering and testing these conditions can lead to unexpected results.

What are you favorite materials to work with and how does sustainability inform your work?

Serge: Since my carpentry apprenticeship forty years ago, I have worked with wood and it still keeps surprising me. It has amazing properties in different areas which we try to enhance in our work. Wood is a renewable resource and we take great care to use only wood from certified sources and solvent-free processed sheets.

How did Flexible Wood come into being?

Serge: The idea was born in 2006 in an evening workshop, as a student of mine had the wish to build a lounger out of wood. As we hadn’t had the possibility to steam bend or layer glue wood in such dimensions, we started experimenting by incising wooden beams. For a certain period of time, we continued working by fitting these incised pieces together, creating flexible sheets (pictured left). Recognizing the continuous incision pattern throughout the assembled beams, the idea arose to perforate full boards by incisions from the top instead of fitting multiple beams together. That leaded to the different flexible wooden boards we work with today.

Serge: We think of Dukta as our playground. Through our experiments and the systematical testing of the different parameters, we push the limits of the material. Applying our system on wooden sheets from thin air-ply to thick 3-layer boards (pictured left and below), we like to push the material’s boundaries, always between the poles of flexibility and stability.