Designer Spotlight: Rooms

Name: ROOMS
Location: Tbilisi, Georgia
Number of years working in design: 7

When you think of the country Georgia, design may not be the first thing that comes to your mind. But don’t let that hinder you! The Trendease Team had the pleasure of discovering the young Georgian ladies who make up Rooms: Nata Janberidze, Keti Toloraia, and Baia Davitaia.

Rooms is based in Tbilisi, and since we had to look up where that was, exactly, perhaps you too would like to know more about this mysterious city. Tbilisi, literally 'warm location', is named for its hot springs and is pronounced "tbee-lee-see". Strategically located along the Silk Roads, in the heart of the Caucasus between Europe and Asia, and a location of rivalry between the area’s assorted powers like Persia, The Byzantine Empire, Arabia, and the Seljuk Turks, you can only imagine how culturally rich the region has become over the centuries. Tbilisi is home to more than 100 different ethnic groups; an estimated 80% of the population is ethnically Georgian. Wikipedia notes that “the architecture in the city is a mixture of local (Georgian), with strong influences of Byzantine, European/Russian (neo-classical), and Middle Eastern architectural styles.” And our favorite new tidbit: “In 1980 the city housed the first state-sanctioned rock festival in the [former] USSR.”

With such diversity it is no surprise to see the vast talents of these designers.

1. How did you come to be involved in the world of design?
We were studying at the Tbilisi Academy of Art, after graduating, we established a product and interior design company, Rooms.

Rooms intends to create inventive, catchy, playful, ironic, distinctive designs. Rooms is not a follower of any particular style; designers think that design cannot be described by a dogma. On the contrary, designs come about through the situation, product and consumer-oriented design process, which exists somewhere between the method and the magic.

2. What influences you? From where do you find your inspiration?
Inspiration can come from everything that is around you. For example, while sitting in the restaurant, inspiration came [to us] by the beauty of Nata’s jacket placed on the back of a restaurant chair. We looked at the chair and suddenly the idea came to our mind, “What if we dressed the chair?”

3. What is you preferred travel destination?
Keti Toloraia- India
Nata Janberidze- South America
Baia Davitaia- South of France

4. What is your favorite medium to work with? Product category?
Working on public space interiors and, in product – furnishing. We have been working on public interiors lately, and it gives us pleasure.

5. Tell us about your recent project.
We just finished a hotel interior and a Chinese / New American restaurant interior, both in Tbilisi.
All these projects are different and that’s why it is so interesting for us, [giving us] different ideas and sources of inspiration.

Other projects: Dressed Chairs, to keep the space around you warm and cozy; TV Table Soviet reflects our childhood wish to penetrate the TV screen; Chairman, chair in wood with aluminum legs; and the limited edition Director’s Lamp. And Ghost Wallpaper, fulfilling a child’s wish to draw on the walls, was part of the interior design we created for the fashion retailer Prive.

6. What is your dream project?
To make such product that will remain as a classic masterpiece in the history of design.