Backstitch rug

After graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2007, Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay set up Raw Edges, a design studio where their imaginations could take flight: furniture, installations & products began to develop with a strong accent on playfulness and childlike wonder.

The studio became a place where curiosity would be a prevalent factor in the creation of their designs, a place where they could embark on a continuous journey of discovery, turning the world upside down and inside out, cracking things open & studying their structure, always striving for surprise, wonder, humour.

Colours, patternmaking & movement form a large part of the DNA at Raw Edges. The ideas of energy and provocative illusion are aimed at bringing out the kid in all of us who engage with it, an ongoing battle against boredom perhaps! Some ideas include pouring expandable foam into folded paper cavities, cooking timber in boiling dyes, & making paper moulds for the production of industrial ceramic tiles.

Yael and Shay met in Jerusalem & moved to London to study at the RCA, where Ron Arad was head of the course at the time. Under the guidance of their tutors Daniel Charney and Rober Feo, they began to experiment with creating new typologies, by thinking how everyday surroundings might be enriched by the products we use & the objects we own. In a show curated by Martino Gamper, held just after graduating, Yael and Shay presented Stack & Volume, which helped to establish the foundation of the studio.

Raw Edges have worked with global brands such as Louis Vuitton, Stella McCartney, Swarovski, Vitra and Kvadrat.