Otra Objects: how Rian Davidson turns building tradition into contemporary design in Barcelona

In Barcelona, the studio Otra Objects works from a central question: how to put structure back at the centre of design? At its head is Rian Davidson, a designer born in Nova Scotia, Canada, whose path runs through naval carpentry, traditional European architecture and Japanese construction.

Davidson grew up in a territory shaped by boatbuilding and by structural carpentry in solid wood. Spruce, maple, oak and birch were part of daily life. The logic of joints, beams and hewn structures formed his first understanding of building. It was a practice tied to the environment and to necessity, far from the industrial standardisation that today governs much of global production.

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Over the past fifteen years, the designer has travelled through workshops and building traditions in Europe and Japan to understand how different cultures resolved questions of stability, proportion and permanence. He studied systems of residential construction, observing how techniques emerged from climate, landscape and local belief. That research moved naturally into the furniture of Otra Objects, where every piece starts from architectural logic before taking its final form.

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A direct example of this approach is the Quadra Chair, made by hand in Barcelona. The chair starts from a formal exploration guided by the building process and is defined by a precise, almost graphic angular silhouette. Built in PEFC-certified chestnut, it is available in the raw version, at €850, or the charred version, at €950, both finished with hard wax oil for greater durability. What draws attention is not only the firm drawing, but the structural clarity: the lines reveal the constructive reasoning that holds the piece together.

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The studio's work avoids excess. There is no ornament and no formal gesture aimed at immediate effect. The complexity sits in the joints, in the proportions and in the way the parts meet. In some cases the detail is visible; in others it stays discreet. The focus is not the image of the object, but the resolution of the structure.

While much of the market operates in fast cycles and serial production, the practice of Otra Objects is organised at another pace. The drawing comes from the material. Form follows construction. The historical reference does not appear as direct quotation, but as absorbed knowledge.

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The result is pieces that carry a clear sense of origin. The Canadian influence shows in the structural honesty. The European tradition appears in the understanding of scale and proportion. Japanese discipline shows in the treatment of detail and in formal restraint. Not as an aesthetic blend, but as technical continuity.

At a moment when design often favours finish and image, Rian Davidson treats furniture as construction. And it is in that decision, structural before superficial, that the studio's relevance lies today.

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