MAKERS | EUROPE | GERMANY | WOODWORK

Lukas Wegwerth and Corinna Dehn | Designers

Corinna Dehn and Lukas Wegwerth with the Armadillo Collection © Sandra Gramm, courtesy Lukas Wegwerth.

Berlin-based designers Lukas Wegwerth and Corinna Dehn bring together two very different paths: his as a carpenter, trained in the Bavarian Forest, hers as a fashion designer who spent nearly a decade at Y-3. Their Armadillo series, showing in their joint Companions exhibition at Gallery FUMI during PAD London, began with century-old beech shingles taken from a farmhouse in the Vogelsberg, where they had been weathered by rain, wind and sun. The pair looked to nature's own overlapping surfaces, from fish scales to butterfly wings to the armor of armadillos, creating pieces that seem to have wandered out of a storybook.

How did you begin?

Lukas: Growing up in the countryside, I was surrounded by opportunities to build and make things. My parents had a small-scale farm that we ran as a sideline, growing vegetables and keeping various animals like chickens, geese and sheep — my father is also a beekeeper. There were always things to be built or maintained, and my parents involved me from a very young age. So I had plenty of opportunities to gather experience constructing fences and structures, a stable for the sheep, for example — always putting to use what we were surrounded by, reusing and repurposing — the practice of farmers. This informed my practice very deeply.

Corinna: As a child, I spent a lot of time around my grandparents, who were always busy working in the garden, preparing food, knitting, doing needlework, and repairing and building things — my grandfather was a carpenter, so he built furniture for us when we were little. Working with my hands is essential to me. It gives me space to reflect, but it also gives me the opportunity to better understand myself and my relation to the world. Making something can be a highly rewarding process, but it can also nag at you and challenge you profoundly — either way, it is always a way to learn, and it raises many follow-up questions.

Lukas Wegwerth working on a new piece of the Armadillo series. Photo by Moritz Wegwerth, Courtesy of Gallery FUMI.

How did you learn?

Lukas: I trained as a carpenter in a small woodworking workshop in the Bavarian Forest. This workshop focused on the use of local, high-quality wood and on furniture making in the spirit of the Shakers. After becoming a journeyman, I went on to study design at UdK Berlin (Berlin University of the Arts), where, during my studies, I founded my workshop, exploring aspects of design in an experimental way. Local and alternative sourcing and notions of growth have always been important aspects of my approach.

Corinna: I studied fashion design at UdK Berlin and worked in the fashion industry for almost a decade. In my role as Senior Designer for Y-3, I contributed to the menswear and accessories collections, working in close collaboration with Yohji Yamamoto and his design team. After leaving the fashion industry at the beginning of the pandemic, I started facilitating design workshops in Berlin's youth prison, aiming to support minors in experiencing self-efficacy by materializing their ideas through hands-on exercises.

Working together came naturally. After helping each other out on various projects over the years, collaborating and influencing each other's ways of working, we began to work together more closely.

Corinna Dehn, photographed by Sandra Gramm.

Who or what most influences your work?

Corinna: A big influence on the Armadillo series was renovating Lukas's grandmother's house. It is a late-18th-century, oak-built, timber-framed farmhouse, which, like most houses in the region, was partly covered with beech shingles. As we had to do structural repairs on the facade, we had to take the old shingles down.

Once we took them down, we were both fascinated by the beautiful look of these wooden shingles that had been on the facade for approximately 100 years: there were weathered parts, beautifully structured with intricate lines, where the shingles had been exposed to rain, wind and sun, and smooth, untouched areas where the wood had been covered by the next shingle above, making each shingle a testament to time.

It sparked our curiosity about shingles. The difference between a slice of wood and a shingle is minimal, yet a shingle becomes a system component within a perfectly functioning, locally sourced and made material strategy. But also as a universal principle — [they are] found in vernacular architecture in very simple or elaborate shapes, but also in animal skins, the scales of fish, butterfly wings or the armor of armadillos.

In the region where Lukas grew up, where we are renovating the farm, shingles are a material culture: among other local features such as basalt stone and oak timber framing, they have defined the local architecture. They were the traditional way of protecting a house from the strains of weather, mostly on its weather-exposed side. In recent decades, the shingles have been slowly disappearing, the traditional shingle makers have passed away, and the living material culture is slowly dying out.

A shingle facade is a vital entity, in the sense that it becomes a habitat for wild bees and other insects, which inhabit the areas beneath the wooden shingles that are protected from the weather. But a shingle surface can also develop a very animate appearance. We became driven by the idea of creating furniture that can express and transport this quality by becoming friendly companions.

How do you plan, prepare, and create your works?

Corinna: We talk to each other about our ideas or things we came across that made us curious: this could be a piece of wood, a tree, an image in a book, something that we discover on our construction site — something that happened to stand out due to its quirky shape, character or material quality. Sometimes happy accidents inform an idea.

We start sketching and sometimes make scale models. While Lukas starts studying and planning how to make the woodwork, I experiment with colors and make trials of shingle surfaces. We talk in depth about what we want to achieve and how the piece could turn out, as the process of making shingle furniture is quite time-consuming. Once a decision is made, we start working on the actual piece.

What does a typical day look like?

Corinna: We work in a studio in Tempelhof. On a typical day, we ride our bikes to our studio, crossing a park and Tempelhofer Feld; it's a great opportunity to clear our heads and focus on what we want to do in the studio. The day at the studio starts with a coffee and a few minutes to talk and plan the day. In wintertime, the routine also involves making a fire in the stove and cooking the coffee there.

Once we've organized the day, everyone goes about their tasks until lunchtime, when we have a freshly cooked meal together. This is a very important part of working together — especially when we have interns or people assisting us with the work in the studio: since the work can be loud and everyone is focused on their tasks, it's essential to have a moment to be together and share a meal.

Another recurring ritual is saying goodbye to a finished piece: once the final shingle is applied, we clear the studio completely and take a moment to digest and fully take the piece in: how did it turn out? What is its character? When you've spent so much time together, it's important to have a moment before letting go.

Lukas Wegwerth in the studio in Berlin, courtesy of the artists and Gallery FUMI.

One more thing… An object you’ll never part with?

Corinna: I have a wooden crate that my grandfather built as a young man. It stayed with him in the various places he lived throughout his life, and now it stays with us.

A place or space that most inspires you anywhere in the world? 

The forests! There are beautiful ones surrounding our farm, and when we travel, we seek out great forest experiences. We were both blown away by the sequoia forests on the American West Coast.

A current maker you’re most excited about?

Our daughter Oda — she is eighteen-months-old and makes great installations and drawings.

What music do you listen to while you work?

Mostly, the two of us listen to podcasts, and often to the music that the team plays.

Armadillo Table, 2026 by Lukas Wegwerth and Corinna Dehn, Companions exhibition at Gallery FUMI. Photography by Moritz Wegwerth.

Interview by Lucrezia Lucas

Images courtesy Gallery FUMI, Moritz Wegwerth, Sandra Gramm, and Penguins Egg