Artist, Hella Jongerius: At that time, everybody was like, “What?! Are we working in bed? Who wants this?”
Hello, I’m Hella Jongerius. I’m a designer. I see as my main role that I craft bonds between objects and people.
My Soft Office contains a bed with two computers, so you could live and work and dream on the internet. There was a pillow on the bed with an embroidered keyboard on it, and also two pillows with built-in speakers. And we had the power patch that was fake fur. And then we had a keyboard built at an angle, and in the middle was a plate, so this idea that we all do many other things while we are working [laughs]. For instance, eating.
I find it important that not only engineers are thinking of technology. If it is in the world of the engineers, it all looks the same. It’s all cold and it has no texture. It’s not communicating. We are losing materiality, so the skin of a product really relates to the user. The touching, the feeling—this gives this understanding that you’re alive. It gives also a private feeling that’s so important, since we live in this digital realm.