Designers on Holiday
Designers on Holiday[1] is an experimental campsite founded by Tom Gottelier and Bobby Petersen in 2014 soon after graduating from the Royal College of Art in London. Located in the center of the rural Swedish island of Gotland, the campsite was set up by the duo as an escape for their creative friends and themselves to explore new ways of designing and building in relation to nature, whilst recapturing the playful side of design that first drew them to be designers.
The philosophy of the camp is one of bringing like-minded individuals together to share skills and create together during an intense two-week period annually. Originally a cross-section of the duo's friends, the site now puts out a yearly application call drawing designers, artists, engineers, biologists, and much more from all around the world. Many of the attendees were and have gone on to become highly influential in their fields, including Marjan van Aubel, James M Shaw, Matylda Krzykowski, Marcin Rusak, and Soft Baroque, to name a few.
Origin
Designers on Holiday was dreamt up during the summer of 2014 by friends Tom Gottelier and Bobby Petersen whilst trying to decide how to take a break from their newly formed design studio. The opportunity to camp on a classmate's family farm that was no longer operational was too good to pass up. A hastily Photoshopped poster was distributed amongst friends asking them to join the duo on the island the next week. September of 2014 saw the first makeshift camp take place with five attendees, building a sauna and one tent.[2]
2015 marked the official formation of Designers on Holiday and acquisition of the parcel of land that the camp currently sits on.
Structure
Designers on Holiday is run by founders Tom Gottelier and Bobby Petersen; all permanent projects are reviewed and advised on by the pair to maintain the overall aesthetic vision of the site, planning, and ensure the natural environment of the site is not compromised.
Each year Gottelier and Petersen, along with advice from returning attendees, lay the plans for the summer's projects. Working with all attendees on the first day of the camp each year, projects are divided up amongst teams for the year, with returning teams and projects left to complete old projects if not finished the year before.
All projects are brainstormed with as many attendees as necessary daily to drive each project forward in a creative and collaborative manner.
Attendees are selected each year through an online application process. Previous attendees are given first refusal if they have an ongoing project, and new attendees fill the rest of the spaces. There is a maximum of twenty attendees allowed on site at any one time. The only requirements for applying to Designers on Holiday is that every attendee has a skill that will benefit the camp and that they can share that skill with others.
Each day of the two-week-long camp is scheduled around meals that are curated by long-time collaborator Julia Georgallis. Along with each attendee's design work, they are expected to help with the general running of the camp, from site cleaning to meal prep and cleanup.
Members
Many talented people have attended Designers on Holiday over the years, with many returning every year. Attendees such as textile studio Working Cloth, Architect Andrew Seiger[3], Artist Malgorzata Bany[4], Designer and Curator Matylda Krzykowski,[5] Inventor and designer Marjan van Aubel, James M Shaw, Marcin Rusak, Soft Baroque, Marina Stanimirovic, Oscar Honeyman-Novotny, Milly Freeman, Will Yates-Johnson, Annika Thiems, Bryn Lloyd, Santi Guerrero Font, Laurence Symonds, Zoe Jo, Afra Quintanas Valls, David Horan, Julia Georgallis, Parsha Gerayesh, Olaya Ruiz, Chloë Leen, Aarika Gottelier, David Symonds, Hillary Symonds, Rain Wu, Marcin Rusak, Eliza Axelson-Chidsey, Avantika Agarwal, Lila and Zoe Georgallis
Projects
Since 2014, designers from different disciplines and countries have built a wide array of essential amenities, including a camp full of tents, micro cabins, a symbiotic hot tub, a plunge pool, two outdoor showers, an outdoor kitchen, a wood-fired bread oven, a one-man sauna, a 10-man sauna, a terracotta kiln, a viewing platform, a dining pavilion, a toilet, a swing, an observation platform, a waxed cotton sailing boat, a herbal distillery, a sound installation, a woodland cinema, a camp flag, a loom, soap made from the local flora, paint pigments made from the land, many a wonderful dinner, loads of ceramics, and countless hand-carved spoons.
There are eleven main parts of the Gotland site; the main house, the shed, the rocky campsite, the field campsite, the field, the woods, the spa, the pavilion, and the kitchen[6].
Recognition
Designers on Holiday has received a wide array of recognition over the years from features in The New York Times[7], Cabin Porn[8], The Hinterland[9], Frame Magazine, The Holborn, The Anatomy, to name a few.
Professional practice
Throughout the life of Designers on Holiday, the founders have maintained their professional practice, now based in Los Angeles, California, under the name Petersen and Gottelier. Within their studio practice, they have introduced techniques and processes learned during the annual camps; working with clients such as Land Rover, The Ecology Center, Lindahl, Vice, Fabacus, and the Blue Sky Center.
References
- ↑ "DOH". designersonholiday. Retrieved 2020-09-16.
- ↑ "London studio Featuring Featuring invites designers on holiday". www.itsnicethat.com. Retrieved 2020-09-16.
- ↑ "PROJECTS". General Office. Retrieved 2020-09-16.
- ↑ "Malgorzata Bany". malgorzatabany.com. Retrieved 2020-09-16.
- ↑ Matylda. "Matylda Krzykowski". Retrieved 2020-09-16.
- ↑ "Designers On Holiday Kitchen (@doh_kitchen) • Instagram photos and videos". www.instagram.com. Retrieved 2020-09-17.
- ↑ Hass, Nancy (2018-11-05). "A Sauna With an Observation Deck, Dreamed Up at a Designers' Retreat". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-09-16.
- ↑ Cabin porn : inside. Klein, Zach, 1982-, Moon, Freda, 1979-, Cassity, Matt (First ed.). New York. October 2019. ISBN 978-0-316-42309-0. OCLC 1119735951. Search this book on
- ↑ The hinterland : cabins, love shacks and other hide-outs. Ehmann, Sven,, Klanten, Robert. Berlin. 2016. ISBN 978-3-89955-663-6. OCLC 948560830. Search this book on
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