Studio PART is a design duo from Antwerp. Interior architects and furniture designers Julie Van Mulders and Lennart Van Uffelen have been working together since 2020 and are known for their sparing use of materials and their research into innovative manufacturing processes and materials. Both are interior design professors at LUCA School of Arts, in Brussels. Their collaboration with ETAP and Circular Matters won them a bronze medal at the Henry van de Velde Award in 2023 in the environment category.
Having a technical background, Julie Van Mulders and Lennart Van Uffelen express their love for craftsmanship. The duo makes its own prototyping and crafts made-to-measure pieces from different types of material, mainly wood and steel.
They do extensive research and try to define what makes a material its own and which craftsmanship is necessary to make a collection from it. Their 2024 research includes the willow tree chair prototype and the use of a new material made of corn developed by Circular Matter. The name PART itself refers to the fact that they consider themselves as being part of a design process as well as part of the environment.
Studio PART presents its wooden shelving unit, System P4, along with a willow tree chair prototype, adding an outdoor element to this Spring exhibition.
The System P4 shelving unit designed and made by Studio PART is another example of high-end design made with Sonian’s local beech wood. Showing a minimalistic yet sophisticated aesthetic, the shelf is assembled through dovetail joints, with no nails or glue and no apparent screws. The piece can be entirely disassembled to be moved or restored.
Designers Julie Van Mulders and Lennart Van Uffelen try to understand nature and to reshape it into a new design with extra added value. The Tenir project is the perfect example: Studio PART developed seating solutions made of willow trees. Twigs are growing in a reusable aluminium structure, intended to be removed after a few years, when the willow structure becomes self-supporting.