Alain van Havre

Alain van Havre

For Alain van Havre, head designer at Ethnicraft, inspiration is everything. Over the 20 years he has worked in the company, he heavily influenced the design identity of the brand: "I want Ethnicraft's furniture to give people a ‘wow' feeling every single day. Because if you're able to transcend the purely functional and evoke an emotion, people can build a relationship with their item and be happy with it for a long, long time. That is the ultimate goal."

Deeply connected to his environment and passionate about natural materials, he has developed an exceptional expertise for woodworking. Over the years, he has created his own form language, translated into the Bok collection. He believes that for someone to connect with a design, it is important to bring it closer to nature: "More human, more natural forms which are closer to our environment, forms which are familiar to us" he describes.

To him, the functionality of design should not prevail on creativity. Take this building he admires, the Westrand in Dilbeek, Belgium, a 1968 brutalist building by Flemish architect Alfons Hoppenbrouwers. Made mostly out of rough concrete, it is filled with smooth shapes and curves, making it an intriguing piece of architecture. "If you were to look at design from a purely rational point of view, in this case to serve its function as a cultural center, you would never attain these sorts of amazing results", Alain explains.

Creating beauty out of complexity is another driver to his inspiration. An example of Alain's well-thought-out designs is the Graphic sideboard. He cites the Weisman Art Museum by Frank Gehry, whose talent for finding order in chaos inspired him to design the Graphic collection. "It started from chaos, but after an extensive study of shapes, it became a visually enticing composition."

From Bok to Graphic and everything in between, it is obvious that experimenting with composition is a common theme in Alain's work. In his own words, he is on a quest to add movement to the surface. "I like to be moving at all times", he says. "Biking, kiting, skiing, even driving the car, those things really charge my batteries. I'm addicted to the freedom of movement in general, which is why I also strive to escape the static in my designs."