Shay Alkalay – The Master Of Futuristic Furniture Designs

Shay Alkalay – The Master Of Futuristic Furniture Designs

 

Shay Alkalay along with best lifetime friend Yael Mer joined together to create their own new brand called Raw Edges. It has now turned out to be a well known designer studio brand that manufactures some of the best known and best selling futuristic furniture pieces. Shay Alkalay along with Yael Mer are both from Israel basically and have set up their office in London. Shay Alkalay was born in Tel Avi, Isreal in 1976. He studied the art and design in Jerusalem and headed to London for better job prospects in modern designs and architecture.  

His early education was at Politecnico di Milano, Italy which he completed in 2001. Then, he headed to Jerusalem to get his architecture and design degree at BA Bezalel Art and Design Academy in 2002 and completed it in 2005. He later joined the Ron Arad’s Design Products Course - Platform 10: Daniel Charny and Roberto Feo at the MA Royal College of Art to come out with flying colors as a master designer and architect in 2006. His partner also studied the same course at the MA Royal College of Art and this could be the place where the like minded artist met and the rest has now taken shape in the form of Raw Edges Design Studio in London.  

Shay Alkalay has the experience of working at Zehavi Environmental Design Studio, Tel-Aviv in Israel from 2002 to 2004. This is the first job that he had taken up while he was getting graduated at the BA Bezalel Art and Design Academy in Jerusalem. He has also worked as the design assistant at El Ultimo Grito in 2006. He has also had an experience working for a company named Kobold that designs bags and its accessories as well as luggage bags and accessories in Xiamen China in 2007. So, with the vast experience of working in different positions in different firms, he finally ended up setting his own design studio named Raw- Edges with his lifetime friend and partner Yael Mer.  

Shay and Yael started the Raw Edges Design Studio after many years of sharing of their knowledge, life, thoughts and ideas. While Yael is a master of turning two dimensional sheets a functional form, Shay is very much interested in how things move, react and function. Both their interests are clearly seen in the products that they design. Their collaboration has been very fruitful till now as the couple have bagged a lot of awards and appreciation in their short career like: iF Gold Award, Wallpaper and Design Award (2009), The British Council Talented Award, the Designer of the Future (2009) from Design Miami/ Basel, Dutch Design Award and the Elle Decoration International Design Award for best furniture of 2008-09. Most of their work has found a permanent spot in popular museums and they have also participated in a lot of exhibitions all across the globe.  

Some of the Shay Alkalay’s well known designed products that are in great demand are: Stack storage drawers, Pivot cabinet, attachez, hammock, tailored stool, pinha, Tex multi-colored ceramic tiles, Mount Domesticus, tailored wood bench, Volume seats, Cut Attache’z, Pivot desk, Selvedge and many more.