A small studio with a singular position.
Geneva-based. Two designers. Furniture as functional sculpture.
Stratum is a design studio first, and a workshop second. Every piece begins as an idea about how furniture should behave in a room.
The positionWe are Brian and Florian — two designers working out of a studio in Geneva. Our backgrounds are in architecture and industrial design, not traditional cabinetry, and that shapes how we approach the work. We think about objects the way an architect thinks about buildings: as compositions in space, with proportions, light, and structure deciding everything before material does.
Stratum was founded on a simple position — that the most interesting furniture today is neither mass-produced nor handcrafted in the artisanal sense, but designed. Considered. Drawn before built, then built with precision. Each piece in our collections began as a question about form, and each commission begins as a conversation about a room.
We work across three modes: original collections of our own design, custom cabinetry for kitchens and full installations, and bespoke commissions for collectors who want something singular. Different projects, one studio, one design vocabulary.
Stratum refers to layers — geological, material, conceptual. The studio's signature material is layered Baltic birch, where the exposed edge of the lamination becomes the visible surface. The striations in the wood read like strata in stone. The metaphor sits at the center of the studio's design language: nature interpreted through engineering, depth made visible, structure that doesn't hide what it's made of.
The name was a decision, not a coincidence. It tells you, before you've seen any piece, what we believe about how things should be made.
Layered Baltic Birch · Studio Detail
Every Stratum piece is designed and built within the studio. We don't outsource fabrication. We work in laminated birch as the studio's structural material; in walnut, oak, mahogany, and similar veneers for surface treatments; in solid brass for hardware and detail; in Mont Blanc and Taj Mahal quartzites for stone work; with Blum and equivalent European hardware systems for cabinetry. Specifications are precise because the studio's voice is.
We accept a small number of projects each year. The collections continue to expand. Cabinetry projects are taken on by referral and direct inquiry. Bespoke commissions — six to twelve months from first conversation to delivered piece — are reserved for clients who want something that does not yet exist.
Our work is in private homes across Switzerland, France, and beyond. We work in English and French.
We make pieces that are designed to be lived with, not just looked at. That distinction matters more to us than anything else we could say.