Heavy hitters

Multidisciplinary Berlin studio Vaust digs deep into the German capital's weighty brutalist legacy to create impactful designs and interiors

- MARY CLEARY

Vaust's 'Total Exposure' collection includes Pin, €780, a solid aluminium and moulded concrete tabletop sculpture Photography: Dominik Odenkirchen

Vaust's Joern Scheipers and David Kosock do not want to be known as the 'Berlin marble guys? 'Berlin aggregate concrete guys' could be okay, since much of their recent work explores the creative potential of the cheap industrial material. But really, trying to come up with any kind of pithy summation for Vaust would be a fruitless endeavour.

The studio, founded in 2018, has never worked within the confines of disciplines: its work so far has spanned interior design for retail spaces, restaurants and private homes, capsule collections of furniture, sculptural art pieces, and creative brand direction. Yet all of these projects are united by a distinctive visual language that the pair have carefully honed over the past four years. It traces its roots to Berlin, where looming brutalist architecture belies a culture pulsating with vibrant eccentricity. The city's penchant for weighty, monolithic forms and unexpected juxtapositions are reflected in Vaust's work, which often blends blocks of rough quarried stone with polished pieces of metal and glass.