This series, COLLECTIBLE In-Depth, unveils the backstage of contemporary creation. Tackling various topics from personal designer processes to the position of collectible design on the global design market, COLLECTIBLE In-Depth offers different views to suit all tastes. Today we talk to Hee Choi, founder of Ae Office.

C: How did you get into collectible design? Why did you focus your practice on this type of design rather than industrial design?

HC: We love to tell stories. While we have backgrounds in industrial design and still working on mass-produced projects, we like to capture our own narratives and stories, new expressions and artistic direction through a form of collectible design. We’re transforming the collected inspiration from different locations into the range of conventional object typology and enjoying the freedom of exploring materials and processes. 

C: Where do you take your inspiration from?

HC: We mostly get inspiration from the surroundings in which we live. Codes commonly recognized in certain culture, language, vernacular objects found in the street are what we are greatly fascinated with. We are naturally drawn to moments when we distort or reposition the image which usually has fixed meanings within the cultural context. 

C: When designing a collectible object how do you think about its various environments where it can end up?

HC: We are creating alternative objects for use in home living, and we like the idea that the objects interact with people and potentially influence their thinking or behavior. Because we strongly reference normal stories and materials found in the local environment, they may not stand out in the same setting. However, when placed in a different environment, the narratives unfold differently. We imagine our DOL low chair inspired from Jeju could create a fantastic atmosphere in a living room of Berlin. We love to enjoy these moments when the most ordinary stories become special. 

C: How do you question or challenge functionality in your design process?

HC: We think like artists but our final outcomes are grounded to functions. Our design projects feed off of things that have already been existing in our lives for a long time. Rather than creating a language that is completely disconnected from the real world or has limited functionality, we try to take the typologies that we have built up over the course of human history as formats, and slightly change or tweak the context to question what we think for granted.

COLLECTIBLE: Can you talk about a new piece / collection that you release for COLLECTIBLE this year?

Hee Choi: We are unveiling the next step from the previous DOL collection: a low chair and table made from cork. Known as one of the most sustainably sourced natural materials, we have been developing new expressions from cork, exploring its malleability as a soft, lightweight design material. Carefully balancing cork stones are stacked to form functional pieces. What may appear solid and heavy is, in fact, deceives the viewer with its soft tactility. Ae Office moves themselves to live and work in different local cultures to explore unique contexts and materials found across urban and rural settings. The inspiration for DOL collection came from our 2021-2022 stay in Jeju, a volcanic island in South Korea, where we first relocated from Seoul.