Winner
Interior Innovation Award 2011
With the Interior Innovation Award 2011, Felix Schwake received early recognition for a design approach that redefined the relationship between function, order, and spatial calmness. The award was presented by the German Design Council within the framework of IMM Cologne — one of the internationally most significant platforms for furniture and interior design.
The awarded project was the multimedia desk SUMMARUM, a design that addresses a fundamental question of contemporary working environments: How can a workspace enable order without restricting the user through rigid organization?
Rather than developing a conventional organizational system, Felix Schwake created a spatial structure that consciously responds to the actual processes of everyday work. The desk fully integrates technical infrastructure, storage space, and working materials into its geometry without producing the impression of technical overload.
Characteristic of the concept are extendable functional compartments and integrated organizational zones. Work materials, cables, and technical devices do not disappear entirely from daily use, but instead receive clearly defined positions within the furniture itself. The result is not a demand for permanent order, but a controlled form of openness and flexibility.
Particularly influential for the jury was the idea that order is not created through reduction alone, but through intelligent spatial organization. One example is the integrated pen compartment, deliberately conceived as an informal working area — a place where materials may remain immediately accessible without visually overwhelming the entire workspace.
Whenever calmness and clarity are to be restored within the space, the extended functional elements can be fully reintegrated into the construction. In this way, the reduced geometric appearance of the object remains permanently intact.
The project already reveals a central principle that would later define many works by Felix Schwake: function should not dominate visually, but instead be fully integrated into a calm architectural order. Technology, use, and organization are not concealed, but precisely designed.
The Interior Innovation Award 2011 therefore recognized not merely a piece of furniture, but a new approach to the relationship between order, technology, and spatial atmosphere within the working environment.