The Dwell 24: Ovuud

"I’ve gravitated toward lighting since I was a kid," says Benjamin Gillespie, who channeled his youthful enthusiasm for deconstructing yard-sale lamps into creating sophisticated LED-based fixtures in his Philadelphia studio, Ovuud.

"My dream was to make a business where I could design and sell my work," he says. "Through social media, that became a reality." Gillespie, who earned a degree in material engineering and was also a practicing patent lawyer, mentions that he "didn’t study design."

But for this self-taught woodworker, lack of formal training seems beside the point. To fabricate his floor lamps and hanging fixtures, he loops and twists strips of wood—ash and oak are favorites—into figure eights and Möbius bands, or splits a single beam lengthwise into skinny strips that, improbably, balance on the floor.

"I don’t pull from a pool of aesthetic inspiration," he says. "A lot of it is dictated by what the material can do."

Read the full Q&A with Benjamin Gillespie below.

Hometown: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Describe what you make in 140 characters. I design lighting based in wooden forms.

What’s the last thing you designed? A new fixture that combines task lighting with RGB-color lighting and complimentary color finishes. Currently working to expand the first few iterations into a full series.

Do you have a daily creative ritual? I am a messy person, so I try to start the day with at least some cleaning/decluttering of the shop. This helps with my morning mental thaw.

How do you procrastinate? I get distracted by side projects that are unrelated to orders. That said, this idea-testing is can be pretty useful as I ultimately incorporate the new ideas into later production.

What everyday object would you like to redesign? Why? I would enjoy taking a crack at a flashlight.

Who are your heroes (in design, in life, in both)? I am currently working to scale my studio’s production capability. This has made me gain a lot of respect for studio founders that were able to successfully and ethically master scalable production. This is a challenging hurdle.

What skill would you most like to learn? I am in the process of trying to better learn 3D modeling. My workflow is generally pretty hands-on when translating an idea to physical form. In the past, incorporating a computer-based step felt like an intermediary detour in the designing process. That said, I now see the value of such step in terms of how it can enhance communication, revision, and production scalability.

What is your most treasured possession? Probably my camera. Teaching myself how to properly photograph lighting has been really fundamental to not only sharing the work with a growing audience but also control how the work is conveyed.

What’s your earliest memory of an encounter with design? Earliest? Probably LEGOs. This was my first exposure to understanding how creating something requires a thoughtful balance of not only how something looks but also how it is built.

What contemporary design trend do you despise? This moment may have already past, but I hated the use of spray-foam as a design element.

Finish this statement: All design should... be intuitive for the intended user. If the intended audience is big, then the design should be intuitive for a lot of people. If the intended audience is small, it's OK for that design to be intuitive for only that small audience.

What’s in your dream house? An abundance of natural light, a centralized conservatory/indoor garden, and a big shop space.

How can the design world be more inclusive? Look beyond typical educational or technical backgrounds as well as outside of what seems like well-defined circles/cliques.

What do you wish non-designers understood about the design industry? The amount of resources that go into making a production ready fixture.

You can learn more about Ovuud on their Instagram.

View the 2022 Dwell 24!