OKHA is a luxury home brand of SAOTA, a well-known luxury house design studio in South Africa. hey are committed to the pursuit of simple and clear lines, shapes and forms.The design is ingenious, using stone, metal, and wood to create fine products with modern flavor. Complexity is not their characteristic. T Be fascinated by the elusive harmony between order and chaos, and they enjoy the beauty and contradiction that exists in imperfect, discordant, unexpected things.

Adam Court, SAOTA, OKHA Creative Director, also a designer with background in fine art painting and sculpture. He has worked and lived in Paris, Los Angeles, London and Cape Town, and has work experience in fashion, jewelry, photography, film, interior design and more.

Adam Court shares his design experiences under the theme of Progressive Design. He was born in UK and came to Cape Town establishing his career 17 years ago. The environment change from big city to natural landscape brings him many optimistic influences and inspirations. Never be taught of any professional architectural knowledge, Adam Court has a great passion for any forms of art. He thinks that design is the expression of art, creating the unique spatial character and ambience by collision and contrast of different forms, shapes and materials. 

Yinjispace：The furniture design comes from free inspiration or exact logic?

Adam Court：I think it is the second one. This is a freedom of intuition and creation, which comes from my rich experiences. I haven’t receive any formal education and training in architecture and it is likely that I behave freer and more experimental in design. 

Yinjispace：How to improve self’s aesthetics in design?

Adam Court：I think we all hear a voice inside that guides us, and you need to learn how to listen to and believe what the voice tell you. You can’t be afraid of experimental things and different directions. They are processes of learning in which we explore and be wild, believing in ourselves much more. We learn how to express and take risks to accept challenges in design, then we become old hands in it. 

Yinjispace：How to combine the furniture and interior design?

Adam Court：The furniture has to connect with the interior design. The space you design must has some links with objects and elements inside. Having a same language, they could talk to each other. I think design should represent the house owner’s personalities and you could have impressions of what kind of people they are. If you walk into a space without telling anything about it’s owner’s characteristics, you could see this place is devoid of personal things. So you must care about the personalities and the connections. The site and the project itself have huge influence upon the design. Like I said, we have mountains and seas here, so we consider them when we design. This is a dialogue among all the elements. 

Yinjispace：How to present good inspiration and creative ideas without professional design training?

Adam Court：It’s personal. I haven’t studied in an architecture school for a day, but study itself is important enough. It’s a process of learning, growing and establishing consciousness. I spend a lot of time for I’m not an architecture school graduate, working on many other areas. But what I did before could be used in my work today. I think it’s significant to have a wide outlook and an open mind. Be a sponge, you absorb things around, seeing and observing carefully, with a heart focusing on the moment and connecting to the space that you are in. Do not scroll through your computer and phone all the time. 

Yinjispace：How does the unique emotional connection of furniture arise?

Adam Court：I spend a lot of time travelling. When I’m in travel, the inspiration comes to my brain, which wouldn’t finds me when I sit in the office. The inspiration comes from nothingness instead of the office. So I think you should relax yourself and get away from the computer, making the brain and heart open. I don’s chase inspiration, but it naturally springs up when I’m in that meditating condition. 

This condition comes when I’m in travel driving and listening to musics. You have to create the nothingness, then you fill it with everything. Besides this, I see a lot of exhibitions. I observe architectures and buildings along the road. And I see many documentaries. One of them is about Issey Miyake, a Japanese designer that passes recently. 

I gain inspirations from fashion, photography, sculpture and other artistic forms. If you design with your sincerity and your heart, the energy and feeling would transform into the objects you use. 

So sometime when we appreciate art works, we don’t need to understand it but we feel what it contains and its emotions. There is a dialogue and a connection in the energy that it passes on. Whatever we design and create, we use our heart, then your work captures the feeling and deliver it to the audiences in the same way.