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"      SEE THE DESIGNS  Patrik Fredrikson and Ian Stallard are alchemists as much as product designers, stripping materials down to their bare essence and altering their very DNA. They work with metallurgists, engineers and textile experts to change the shape, color and composition of materials. The London-based duo also create unexpected juxtapositions\u2014making a rubber-and-stainless-steel chair, for example, for their recent limited-edition furniture collection for England&amp;#039;s prestigious David Gill Galleries, and a porcelain vase that is stuck together Frankenstein-like with sterling silver pegs.  Their items are witty and exquisitely crafted. But they also are visually sumptuous, so alive with texture that you can practically feel them with your eyes before you touch them with your hands. It&amp;#039;s one of the many reasons FredriksonStallard&amp;#039;s work has appeared in the hallowed halls of such retailers as the Conran Shop, the Museum of Modern Art and Paul Smith. Last year they created a chandelier for Swarovski (part of the company&amp;#039;s vaunted Crystal Palace collection\u2014a sure sign that they&amp;#039;ve arrived) dubbed Pandora, a kinetic sculpture whose crystal orbs dance and circle Fantasia-like in midair, endlessly destroy-ing and restoring the fixture&amp;#039;s shape.   You can trace FredriksonStallard&amp;#039;s approach back to its principals&amp;#039; roots. The pair met at London&amp;#039;s Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, where Fredrikson, a Swede trained in architecture, was studying industrial design, and Stallard, a Brit, was concentrating on ceramics. After graduating, Stallard in 1996 and Fredrikson in 1998, they set up shop together. At first they worked separately on their own projects. But in 2003, they joined forces and exhibited as FredriksonStallard at London&amp;#039;s 100 Percent Design show.   They gained a national American following in 2005 during ICFF, New York City&amp;#039;s International Contemporary Furniture Fair. San Franciscans were already seeing their work at Citizen: Citizen, a retailer that discovered them in 2004 and began selling a selection of small-scale production pieces \u2014&amp;quot;conversation starters,&amp;quot; Fredrikson calls them\u2014such as Brush #1 and #2, wooden scrubbing implements shaped like crucifixes, and Candle #1, an all-wax candle and holder that melts down to nothing during the course of its use. &amp;quot;The candle was the most important product in terms of building our name and identity,&amp;quot; Stallard says.   In January 2006, Fredrikson received one of the annual fellowships to the Arts Foundation (the first time a furniture designer had been so honored in a decade). Although mentioning only half the team, the award feted the duo&amp;#039;s joint work, including earlier pieces like Table #1 and #2, which are made of rough-hewn birch logs gathered with steel bands. The recognition instigated a flood of high-end commissions and one-offs including Ming Vase #2, a modern take on the classic Chinese form created for Conrasts Gallery, a leading venue in the burgeoning field of design art, which is owned and run by international-scene star Pearl Lam.  Their website&amp;#039;s manifesto eloquently describes their credo: &amp;quot;As we penetrate ever deeper into the digital age, we are leaving behind modernism&amp;#039;s driving imperative\u2014mass production by industrial means. Form and function have long since ceased to be valid guidelines for designers working in a world overflowing with objects that do everything for us and yet are completely devoid of meaning; it is against this backdrop that our work should be viewed.&amp;quot;   Going forward, the duo will continue to collaborate with David Gill. They are also turning their hands to interiors, designing three rooms and custom furniture for a house in Malta. And they are mulling over ideas for a production line of ceramics that they would like to create with the right partner.  &amp;quot;Fredrikson and Stallard are very single-minded, rigorously testing their ideas and pushing what is possible in terms of materials, forms and even, sometimes, taste,&amp;quot; says Gareth Williams, a design curator at London&amp;#039;s Victoria &amp;amp;amp; Albert Museum. This discipline, this refusal to accept anything less than their best (they describe it as being &amp;quot;harshly self-critical&amp;quot;), is what unites the designers&amp;#039; pieces. As Fredrikson explains, &amp;quot;If you&amp;#039;re going to claim your work is about materials, as ours is, it&amp;#039;s not enough to poke at one and think you understand it. You have to spend a lot of time with it, and with people who make things with it. That&amp;#039;s what we do.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/interior-designers/a1368/two-of-a-kind-48216/>