Creative partnerships are often sparked by conflict. In the music world, tension-fuelled relationships are everywhere, occasionally used as a tool by hard-bitten promoters to sell their latest pop hopefuls to a jaded public. Inevitably, they burn with a comet’s intensity before fizzling out under the innocuous euphemism of “creative differences”. For German designers Markus Jehs and Jürgen Laub, the two halves of Jehs + Laub, “creative differences” are often the beginning rather than the end…

“We are calling it ‘organic engineering’,” says Jonathan Prestwich, gesturing to a prototype on a shelf above us. “All the office chairs we have worked on before were based on old-fashioned engineering, very Bauhaus. If you look at this there is none of that.” He is right. The chair we are examining is free from the normal levers, buttons and knobs. Although some way removed from a futuristic blob, there is nevertheless an agrestal feel…

Spanish designer Tomás Alonso needs his space. Part of the Okay Studio collective, he shares a huge building in north London that affords him a sizable workshop area, a space that is integral to his design approach, since it enables him to test and tinker with every stage of the design process. “It is very important to be able to make things with my hands to understand,” says Alonso. “A lot of the things I…

“The centre of design is defined by the factories, certainly not by designers,” says Alain Berteau, a Belgian whose quietly quirky furniture and objects belie a certain kind of pragmatism. “I’m the kind of guy who is not really indulgent with people who believe that design is a means of expression, or an entertainment channel. I know it sounds sad but that’s what I think,” he says matter-of-factly. It’s an amusing statement when you consider…