Dr. Samuel Ross calls furniture ‘functional sculptures.’ Why? Because to him, that is what furniture is. Although his career began as a fashion designer, he slowly branched to other fields. But, he doesn’t want to be called a polymath or multi-disciplinary designer. He is “an artist and a designer, in that order.”
A British-Columbian raised between Brixton and Northamptonshire, Dr. Ross’ earliest memory of creating is with his father, toiling away building a pinhole camera. He fondly remembers sourcing scrap at the computer fairs for home builds with him. Perhaps, that’s where the bug to design and build bit him, or maybe we are reading too much into a simple childhood recollection.
Either way, his latest for Kohler attempts to re-jig the expectations of everyday forms, such as toilets and faucets. It was all sparked due his curiosity about the flow of water, and its unharnessed potential. “This partnership [with Kohler] is a co-studio rather than a collaboration”, he explains. “It has been brewed for over two years. We’re now talking about the next chapter,” he testifies.
But before his quest to explore the flow of water, came his journey to discovering his own niche, or realising that he didn’t fit into tropes.
Early Career
Achievements & Mentorship
Just over a decade ago Virgil Abloh discovered 21-year-old Dr. Ross via Instagram, no less. Within the next day or so, Abloh had appointed Dr. Ross was the latter’s first intern. Then, a fresh graduate, Dr. Ross left his job and side hustles, moved back to his native South London to work for Abloh.
But who was Virgil Abloh? For the uninitiated, Virgil Abloh was a Ghanaian-American designer, who served as Louis Vuitton’s creative director until his untimely demise in 2021. He was known for being one of the first Black creative leads at a major luxury brand, and founding luxury brand Off-White.
In fact, Dr. Ross joined Abloh when he was finalising Off-White’s first production in Milan, and consequently helped the founder develop and materialise the brand’s identity. In turn, Dr. Ross learnt from Abloh the tricks and trades of kickstarting one’s own brand.
Clockwise from Top: Dr. Samuel Ross with Virgil Abloh for GQ; Nike X A-COLD WALL*; SR_A x Beats by Dr. Dre Custom Powerbeats Pro; Hublot Big Bang Tourbillon Dr. Samuel Ross
Now, Abloh was known for his spontaneity, but in a 2019 GQ interview, he insisted that a mere glance at six of Dr. Ross’ posts were enough to gauge his talent and acumen. On 15th April 2024, we met with Dr. Ross at Palazzo del Senato in Milan, which was the premise for an installation designed by him for bathroom brand Kohler. Until now, Dr. Ross has founded his own apparel brand called A-Cold-Wall*, an industrial design studio SR_A, the Black British Artists Grants Programme and even earned a Doctor of Arts degree. He has also bagged the British Emerging Menswear Designer at Fashion Awards 2018, and was a finalist for both the LVMH Prize and ANDAM Award. His product portfolio showcases partnerships with brands such as Nike, Hublot, Beats and Converse, and his work has been acquired by the prestigious Victoria & Albert Museum.
Dr. Ross, much like his mentor, believes in using his privilege and position in society to endorse and underprop lesser represented sections. The agenda is not to divide, but to bring undiscovered perspectives to the mainstream art and design scene.
Milan Design Week 2024: Kohler x SR_A
Formation 01 & Formation 02
As we looked from afar, Dr. Ross strolled in the two-storeyed courtyard of Palazzo del Senato in Milan; his back straight and his form taut complementing the iconic Milanese double order architraved loggias surrounding him. His all-black ensemble stood out in a network of salamander orange coloured pipes. “It feels so good to be able to now debut a wild philosophy here”, he utters as soon as we approach him and ask him about these meandering pipes. From afar the man might have looked a tad bit intimidating, but up-close one can easily imagine him as the zesty 22-year-old under Abloh’s wing. Perhaps, early on, it was the body art covering his skin, or the surety of his gaze that emanated that aura.
Dr. Ross was first introduced to Kohler by his close friend, artist Daniel Ashram. CEO David Kohler and Dr. Ross hit it off at Design Miami 2021, where they spoke their hearts about moving water, the future of bathrooms and their philosophies around it. At Design Miami 2023, they unveiled Formation 01, a radical faucet, and at Milan Design Week they were debuting Formation 02: a smart toilet that borrows Kohler EIR’s smart technology. The idea behind these limited edition pieces is to “rechallenge expectations society may have towards familiarised objects.”
But do we need a new design for our faucets? We pose this question to Dr. Ross with scepticism. But he takes it in his stride. “If you think about the category of toilets and sanitary solutions, it’s been homogenised for such a long time that the category actually needs to catch up with modernity”, Dr. Ross avers. “If you think about the advent and the reintroduction of the Defender 90 [a 4X4 off-road car], that is an already established category it’s been built on. Markets flourish on innovation and newness. So to assume that the world doesn’t need new contributions in the category of design, is assuming that the future doesn’t exist. As an optimist and a liberal capitalist, I want to see competition within commercial categories to move processes forward and to flush out the old and make space with the new.”
“[With Formation 01 & Formation 02,] it’s more so building environmentally optimistic, radical sensibilities and finding answers to my questions”, Dr. Ross goes on to explain his stance behind the faucet and toilet, standing amongst baroque columns juxtaposed by bright orange pipes. “And some of those questions are really about the relationship we hold to water. I’m also looking at nature and the shaping of water erosion. I’m thinking about the lucidity and formless nature of water. I’m also thinking about colour theory in modernity: the relationship we have to orange in New York, in Paris, in London. It’s always temporal. It’s always on the building site. It’s always in the traffic cone. And it’s mostly this urgency, which is again a notion of motion as well.”
Both Formation 01 and Formation 02 have sharp lines but exude a certain fluidity. Both aim to transform the way we interact with the bathroom. By radically reshaping an object that we usually overlook, Dr. Ross wants to prompt us to become more mindful of our everyday habits. For Formation 01, water passes through three tubes interlocking at extreme angles before reaching an integrated head with the inclusion of precision pressure controls ensuring that there’s no disruption in its movement.
“I have a rife with sensors [on taps], too, especially in public spaces, Which is why I moved away from sensors for Formation 01. I wanted to have a physical engagement. I still wanted some type of absurdity, in figuring out ‘How can I use the tap?’, but it’s still based on physical engagement and haptics. And you have this beautiful, free 60 almost like socket component to it. So there’s an immediate response.”
Lastly, the shape of newly launched Formation 02, is a gestural nod to the velocity of engineered waterways contouring Earth. The toilet’s massing evokes the types of land formations that help secure the delivery of water across the planet. It was the same thought process that influenced the ‘Formation 01’ faucet and might influence future concepts. ‘‘Formation 02’ should be viewed as a functional form, as an effigy of expression and engineering that is part of the human experience,” Dr. Ross told Wallpaper magazine
The SR_A X Kohler Collection is 3D-printed, Limited Edition, and Made to Order
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Date added:
17 April, 2024
