The Dwell 24: Heph

Temitope El-shabazz and Damian Okafor want you to ask questions. "We are very, very concerned about how our objects strike up conversations," says Okafor, who cofounded the Lagos, Nigeria, design studio Heph with El-shabazz in 2017. Fashion was the initial entry point to their creative collaboration, and the pair designed a line of eccentric clothing before moving to equally expressive furniture. "How does a chair affect your choices? How does it affect your daily life? What color couch would you like to buy? How does that translate into the kind of person that you are? That plays into what we try to do," says El-shabazz. "It is science for us, it is art for us, it is psychology for us."

The concepts behind Heph’s designs are rooted in Nigerian culture. Inspired to upcycle unwanted materials into something more useful, the studio initially made pieces from the discarded offcuts of trees. These live-edge tables and stools preserve the grain’s natural knobs, knots, and imperfections, essentially acting as artifacts of the organic source material. "Some of those stories are inherited," explains Okafor. Take Heph’s Ayogun Bench, with raw material resurrected from storage for its unique "womb," a shallow depression on the piece’s surface. Rather than discarding an element that might be considered unattractive, El-shabazz and Okafor cut a hole in the bench that echoed the shape of the original indentation.

The V1 Bench, part of Heph’s recent line of ultrasleek yet playful furniture, has two cavities: one slim and rectangular that bisects the backrest like a seat belt and the other, a perfect circle off to one side of the seat. Some clients may decide to put a plant in the empty space, others, umbrellas; for El-shabazz, that choice is part of the "play" he hopes Heph’s designs can foster. The bench, which is finished with automotive paint in colors like red and green, embodies the studio’s departure from live-edge furniture to more modern pieces. "We realized that we were limited with the materials that we were using," says El-shabazz, who sees Heph pushing boundaries in Nigerian interior design. "African art doesn’t necessarily have to have one type of space where it should belong," adds Okafor. "It could connect with more than just Africans."

You can learn more about Heph by visiting the studio’s website or on Instagram.

Top image courtesy Heph

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