The Devil’s Church

9 February 2011

Congratulations to D8 senior designer Stephen Cappello, who recently won a competition organised by creative social network Central Station and bespoke furniture designer With Kerlaff.

The challenge was to create new patterns for the With Kerlaff Shadow Screen – sheets of rubber or aluminium that feature designs cut by water jet or laser. The Shadow Screens are used as freestanding room dividers, hanging panels and window panels in a variety of architectural and interior design projects.

The 100 competition entries were narrowed down to a shortlist of ten, which were then open to public critique via Facebook with the final winner selected by a judging panel including Susie Wright (Channel 4), Alan Pert (Nord Architecture), Damien Smith (ISO) and Paul Kerlaff (With Kerlaff), who said “what clinched it was that the pattern offered the possibility for customizing a screen to incorporate a hidden message of particular relevance to a client, or a context.

Stephen described his design, called The Devil’s Church’, in a typically low brow way: “I started thinking of the stars and light coming through the screen but didn’t just want to do some random stars, so… the constellation is based on Braille and reads out as “To him the stars seemed like so many musical notes affixed to the sky, just waiting for somebody to unfasten them.” (From The Devil’s Church by Machado de Assis)