Londonewcastle/Ink Building – Tom Dixon profile and interview

Tom Dixon is one of Britain's most successful contemporary designers. Completely self-taught, with a background in the early 1980s London music scene, he first gained attention in the middle of that decade for sculptural furniture pieces welded together from scrap and salvage material. Quickly established as an international name, the 1990s was marked by a highly productive partnership with Italian manufacturer Cappellini. By the end of the decade Dixon was taken on as Head of UK Design by Habitat, becoming Creative Director soon after.

In 2002, with David Begg he formed the eponymous Tom Dixon, a London-based design and manufacturing studio with a mission to revive the British furniture industry. The company's better known pieces include Mirror Ball, Copper Shade, Rubber Band chair, Fresh Fat and Beat light. Today he is Creative Director of Tom Dixon and is additionally responsible for Design Research Studio, specializing in interiors and architectural projects. He is also Creative Director of Finnish company Artek, formed by the legendary modernist architect and designer Alvar Aalto in 1935.

Dixon has designed everything from retail stores to the world's longest sofa (at 55 metres), via the Swarovski chandelier and Shoreditch House, but is perhaps best known for his furniture pieces and lighting. He is a fixture on the circuit of major design shows and exhibitions, while his most iconic pieces – classics such as the curviform S Chair and Jack stackable plastic light – are staples of design museums and major auction houses across the globe.

Why did you choose to collaborate with Londonewcastle on the Ink Building?
They have a fresh attitude among developers and want to challenge the norms of the industry – that is appealing. They are keen to stamp their attitude onto the building and I enjoy the challenge of translating this in an architectural sense

What is your contribution to the project?
I want to help define the values of the Ink Building. My direct involvement centers on the lobby, but the design creeps into other public areas, along corridors and into outside spaces

What informed the design you have created, what influences?
North Kensington is very familiar to me – I've lived in and around there most of my life and I am keen to preserve some of the industrial grittiness typical of the area. Lots of new-built developments around there seem to have landed from another planet

What is different about your work in the Ink Building?
I don't like to attempt to innovate and I don't want to over-design this project; I think the design should come as a byproduct almost. I like to under-design. We are mixing in salvage material – reclaimed pebbles, for example, and hopefully wood from the old sea defenses of Hastings – which will add more soul to the building.

What are you hoping to achieve there?
If people step into the building and feel that this is something honest, natural and real, almost bulletproof, then I'll be pleased. This will make it different from other developments around London – I don't want it to look corporate

Will we see new or classic products from your studio in the concept – which ones?
Very little actually, though I'm making a chandelier for the lobby from multiple lights in the collection, and there will be a little upholstery to soften the grittiness

What else are you currently working on?
We're doing the top three floors of Centrepoint and have been busy working with Artek, plus all the usual stuff for the label here. There's also the pavilion that we are doing for Milan, which will move to New York

And what's next for Tom Dixon?
100% Design and Frieze of course, there are some interesting exhibitions planned, one at Sudeley Castle for example... and we're talking to Londonewcastle about a series of new developments