YONT practices sensual design through architectural subtraction and sculptural material exploration – working with what a space already holds rather than adding to it. Navigating the realms of furniture and scenography, this Berlin-based studio blends material poetry, contrasts and club culture. Serdar Ayvaz, who founded the studio together with Coşan Karadeniz, gave us a personal interview.
The name YONT is rooted in the Turkish verb 'yont-mak', meaning to sculpt, refine or carve out. How does this act of subtraction rather than addition come to life in your work and how did the story of your studio begin?
Finding our studio name felt meaningful – we wanted something that reflected our heritage. The word implies an attitude, an action, that felt close to us.
It's not about minimalism in the design sense; what "subtraction" means to us is more about shaping something until it finds a new meaning in itself.
We were friends from university in Berlin, and we wanted to merge our creative visions. Our studio work grew organically with our first commissioned project: an interior renovation on Torstraße 220. We started as an object design project, and it evolved into a studio for interiors, furniture, scenography, and more.
Brutalism is historically known for being heavy and imposing, yet your work – especially the pieces in your Brutalist Pink collection – introduces a beautiful, unexpected softness. How do you find the 'gentle heart' inside a hard piece of concrete?
We love contrast – contradiction, to be more specific. That's where the magic appears: when things that aren't supposed to come together do, in a strange and unexpected way. Imagining a pop, candy-pink material language inside a brutalist setting was an exciting formula for us.
Your scenography work beautifully choreographs how people move through a room. If we were to peek into your own private homes on a quiet Sunday morning, what is one small, slow ritual or object that brings you the most comfort?
YONT's designs cover incredible, monolithic hubs for music, like custom DJ booths and listening stations. Music is a completely zero-waste art form – it takes up no physical space but entirely changes our internal climate. What is a song or album you play in the studio when a project needs a little extra warmth?
Exploring disciplines from furniture to scenography, what are the sources of inspiration behind your work?
Looking back, which project felt like your proudest creative breakthrough, and what is your dearest wish for the future of YONT Studio?
Our first project, Torstraße 220 for the label SEVEN, is probably the most special one so far: a former real-estate office turning into a queer music label's record store and event space in Mitte-Berlin. It's where we could really explore our creativity and collaborate with many talented people to build beautiful pieces – the DJ booth being one of them. Going forward, we don't want to limit ourselves to one typology or scale. We want to move between them freely – interior renovations, events, product prototypes, art and design collaborations, set design. We love creative collaboration.
