Ah Um Design Studio's Jura Collection Embraces The Beauty of Lived-In Design
For the studio’s NYCxDesign debut at Wanted ICFF, designer Zack Nestel-Patt highlights texture as the “emotional component to designing and living with objects.”
Summary
- Ah Um Studio’s NYCxDesign Debut at ICFF’s Wanted will showcase its extended Jura Collection, including the Jura Coffee Table, Stool, Side Table, Mirror, Pedestal, and Bench from 2024 and the new Jura Dining Chair, Side Table, Club Chair, Tiled Accent Chair, and Tiled Floor Lamp.
- At the heart of Zack Nestel-Patt’s wooden and tiled furniture is an embrace of lived-in texture and a sentimentality for process, expressed in unconventional silhouettes and diverse materials.
Rising furniture designer Ah Um Design Studio is readying for its NYCxDesign debut, presenting an extended Jura Collection at ICFF’s Wanted group exhibition.
Central to the aesthetic character and artistic intentions of the handmade line is founder Zack Nestel-Patt’s love for texture. “I am obsessed with texture,” he said in a statement. “Not just texture as in a tactile aspect to a material, but texture as an emotional component to designing and living with objects.”
Visible craftsmanship and texture are foundational to the Ah Um’s style, represented in combinations of grainy wood varieties and warm-hued tiles in asymmetrical configurations and jagged silhouettes. “Being able to see and feel the remnants of the hands that made or designed something imbues an object with feeling, history, and thought,” Zack shared.
In the new Tiled Accent Chair, individuality is expressed through the asymmetrical arms, while tactility is represented through the tiled finish — a material choice often reserved for kitchen surfaces, bathrooms, and public spaces. In contrast, the Jura dining chair centers on different expressions of wood, juxtaposing jagged cuts, curvilinear cut-outs, and rectangular legs. It follows the shapes used in a small wooden side table supported by two jagged sides and the large mirror, adorned with a zig-zag trim surrounding the frame.
Beginning with the Jura Coffee Table, Stool, Side Table, Mirror, Pedestal, and Bench in 2024, the original range marked Zack’s first major experience with woodworking outside of crafting hardwood cremation urns. For the collection’s extended range, Ah Um Design Studio will present an array of new pieces, including a Dining Chair, Side Table, Club Chair, Tiled Accent Chair, and Tiled Floor Lamp, at Wanted Booth #W854 from May 18-20. Ahead of ICFF, the Tiled Floor Lamp will be displayed at Public Records on May 15 for Hello Human and Openhouse’s joint exhibition.
See the gallery above for a closer look at the Jura Collection.
