Nostalgic associations and precise craft define Tbilisi-based Rooms Studio’s work

There’s an inherent romanticism to patina. It suggests a history to an object; that it has been cherished, cared for, preserved for years. That even as time has passed, the thing possesses value. That accumulated memories and suggestions of historical fragments can add as much meaning to furniture and decor as its material qualities is evident in Tbilisi-based design practice, Rooms Studio’s work. Founded by Nata Janberidze and Keti Toloraia in 2007, the studio’s practice crafts furniture that seems to carry this distinct patina, whether material or intangible. Robust and restrained, imperfect yet nimble, the furniture designers’ works are an ongoing negotiation of personal experiences and broader social contexts.

As the studio notes, this design language is a distillation of their experiences of growing up in post-independence Georgia. Speaking to STIR, the founders, Nata Janberidze and Keti Toloraia, elaborate, “Georgia in the 1990s was a place of constant transformation, unfinished buildings, adaptation and improvisation. It was the environment we grew up in, and that experience influenced the way we think about space, form, construction and materials.” Once named, the influence is hard to miss.

While there’s something stringent about the studio’s furniture designs, the details it incorporates are distinctly Georgian, particularly rooted in its rich culture. Horned bulls on the ends of bedposts in the Bedroom collection, the insertion of statue heads in sofas and tables, carved motifs in the DNA Archives collection's cupboard and the abstract, fundamental shapes in their recent chair designs, all suggest a certain architectural quality. “We translate architectural language [from Georgia] into objects, layering them with references from different historical and visual contexts. As a result, we are interested in creating objects that feel strong, autonomous and difficult to place in a specific time,” the duo tells STIR.

It is worth noting that the manner in which Rooms Studio photographs its designs reinforces this sense and narrative of timelessness. Grainy, analogue-style photos complement the product designs' materiality while nudging viewers to associate them with a bygone era. And it’s this play of time, negotiating the desire for newness and the nostalgia for a softer past, that makes the studio’s work feel more compelling. As the designers explain, their “methodology is indirect and fluid, allowing forms and ideas to reappear, shift and develop over time…Objects are conceived not only as tools but as carriers of associations”.

What’s most compelling in the studio's larger body of work is the recurring motifs they play with, as though each collection were a continuation of the last. “Each collection grows naturally from the previous one, both reclaiming our own practice and opening the way for something new," Janberidze and Toloraia reiterate. "Accumulated knowledge becomes the foundation for new observations and explorations, which are continually shaped through the lens of past experience.” The evolution is subtle but evident: the bull that first appeared in a bench from the DNA Archives re-appears as the carved bedpost in the Bedroom series.

Contemporary design often favours smoothness, particularly within dominant Western European conventions, privileging the clean and cutting-edge, the shiny surfaces. While craftsmanship and the handmade have seen a resurgence, they are often, more so, deliberately presented on the opposite end of the sterile: intentionally messy and imperfect in some ways. Rooms Studio’s work instead occupies the space between these extremes. Much of it is blocky and unadorned, but it is also precise and particularly crafted. It focuses on particular details: legs in table designs are curved just so, carved motifs and even graffiti and scratches in wood add texture to particular pieces.

Craftsmanship is tantamount to the studio's work as a methodology for design, with them often collaborating with artists for different pieces and with a large portion of their designs being handcrafted by Georgian makers and artisans. “We are interested in making processes, material behaviour and the dialogue with fabricators, rather than craftsmanship as a value in itself or as the defining characteristic of the work. We draw on Medieval and Soviet references visually, but in the making, our approach becomes methodological rather than stylistic," the product designers convey. "We work closely with people who make the objects, focusing on understanding specific qualities of different materials while connecting with Georgian roots. Many ideas evolve during the making process, so fabrication itself becomes an integral part of the design.”

Rooms Studio tends to prioritise form over material, as the duo notes in conversation. Yet, a distinct material language has evolving across their collections. Sacral Geometry—whose wax pieces were created in collaboration with Georgian artist Shotiko Aptsiauri—is among the studio's crudest works. In contrast, one of their latest collections, Table, presented at Milan Design Week 2025 alongside other works, adopts a more minimal and nimble expression, with blocky wood juxtaposed against sleek steel forms. Further, collections such as DNA Archives evoke the Medieval references that occur throughout their overall portfolio, through their robust forms and materiality .

That heftiness can also be attributed to the works showcased by the duo this year, with their exhibition at Milan Design Week 2026, Untitled Transformation and Dining Arrangements, an earlier showcase in London curated by them. In Milan, Rooms Studio displayed objects in various stages of transformation: chairs draped in fabric, dismantlable tables and Brutalist-looking chess sets as well as lighting designs inspired by Georgia's construction landscape. Similarly, in their London show, the designers included sculptural designs for chairs whose elemental forms and solid wood materiality echoed the Medieval era. The design exhibition also incorporated vases in ceramic, candle holders and ashtrays in cast aluminium and a daybed by the studio.

A sense of evolving rawness runs through each of the studio's pieces, becoming one of its distinguishing features. It’s an almost unruliness to the constraints of luxury design that feels like it comes from their particular experiences. On closing, the duo share their reflections on being a Georgian practice in a market that favours West European names: “We started our studio 19 years ago, when Georgian design had very little international visibility. Introducing the Georgian context has always been an important part of our practice, especially in the early years, and has shaped our experience over time. Today, Georgian design is surely getting more attention with many exciting emerging designers. While our furniture is rooted in Georgia, we see it as a part of a broader contemporary design scene.” The allusion to the handmade, the distinct forms rooted in particular histories, the materiality that invites touch. In Rooms Studio’s work, it all feels romantic.