Designers Lukas Wegwerth and Corinna Dehn have unveiled their Armadillo furniture pieces, clad in facade shingles from buildings in Germany's Vogelsberg region, at the Companions exhibition at London's Galleri Fumi.
The Companions show features six new Armadillo pieces – two cabinets, a sideboard, a birdhouse, a dining table and a stand-alone screen – as well as some older furniture in the series.
All are all clad in wooden shingles in reference to Vogelsberg's traditional architecture.
The designers became fascinated with the material after renovating Wegwerth's grandmother's house in the region, which was clad in weathered wooden shingles from the 1800s.
"What differentiates a shingle from a piece of wood is very minimal, yet the shingle becomes a system component created from chunks of wood that cannot be used for much else, apart from firewood," Wegwerth and Dehn told Dezeen.
"A shingled facade is a very vital entity, it’s a habitat for wild bees and other insects that live in the rain shadow. Visually, it can create an equally vivid and animated appearance."
The shingles used in the Armadillo series came from a variety of different sources – some from Wegwerth's grandmother's house, some from a construction site in a neighbouring village and some from an older project by the artists where they created shingles to clad mobile houses.
Wegwerth and Dehn cleaned, brushed and sanded the old shingles to use them in the project, before preparing them in different ways to create a variety of surface designs.
"The shingles are treated with wood stains in various colours, applied in a very wet stage so the colours can blend into each other, similarly to water colours," the duo explained.
"Other pieces were finished using linseed oil paints. For some pieces, the shingles were ebonised through a process involving successive baths of tannins, rust and slaked lime, which gradually darken the wood."
Organic, playful shapes were used to create the furniture designs, which resemble woodland forest creatures clad in scales. Their friendly appearance gave the exhibition its name, Companions.
"Some of the pieces of the Armadillo series are inspired by elements of vernacular architecture like the timber frame house we renovate, others are more organic and animate, like friendly monsters – companions," the artists said.
However, these shapes add an extra challenge for the artists when it comes to covering the pieces in shingles, with vertically curved areas needing slim shingles and horizontally curved areas calling for short or curved shingles.
"The shapes and sizes of shingles need to be very manyfold and made specifically for a certain spot on the furniture to make it work," Wegwerth and Dehn said.
"Going from more flat areas to more complex shapes, the shingles can go from rather big to pretty small, just like you can observe them in the shell of an armadillo or the scale on a fish," they continued.
This process means that the artists themselves were unsure of what the pieces would look like until they were completely finished.
"The thickness of the shingle coat varies depending on the complexity of the shingled area," Wegwerth and Dehn said. "As a result, the final silhouettes and tonal values only emerge gradually during the process."
Previous designs shown at Gallery Fumi include rubber furniture that resembles ancient ruins and furniture made from cardboard boxes.
The photography is by Penguins Egg, courtesy of Gallery Fumi.
Companions will be on display at Gallery Fumi from 6 October to 21 November 2026. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
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