A Unique Offering – Stefan Vignogna
Focused on embedding function seamlessly through his considered aesthetic, joinery designer Stefan Vignogna speaks to his fascination with creating calming and muted interior spaces. Drawing from a background working closely with makers, his passions lie in developing close client relationships and unveiling solutions that fit a unique offering.
Working from a base in Stepney in Adelaide, Stefan Vignogna brings a considered and restrained take to his designs, working directly with his own clients and collaborating on occasion with architects and interior designers. As a joinery designer, Stefan’s focus ensures he has become an expert in his field, intimately familiar with how integral function and form need to be interwoven. In chatting to him about his joinery so far, he shares insight into a lineage that has led him offering something quite unique. “The process was pretty natural,” he says, “I originally studied interior design, then started contracting as a design to a kitchen company here in Adelaide, and that is where I discovered a niche that aligned with what I love – the coming together of joinery and kitchen design.”
“My initial role allowed me to become a specialist in the field,” he adds. “After about three years of working as a contractor, it felt like a natural progression to start doing my own thing.” After just over ten years within the industry, his network has grown both locally and interstate, opening opportunities for collaboration and a larger client base in the process, which he wants to continuing exploring. His own process and integration with clients and collaborators stem from that same closeness of his work and an attuned attention to detail. “I am pretty hands on, every step of the way,” he says, “from the initial briefing, through to concept and then documenting. I like to be involved in every element to ensure the quality is maintained and to work through detailing.”
Whilst interior designers and architects do design joinery, there is something invaluable about being obsessive about a particular element of design. For Stefan, it is joinery and working through the mechanisms of a space and understanding how the client will use the space. “I take all of the initial information to help feed my approach,” he says. “I want my designs to feel ergonomic and to enhance the use of space as well as how it looks. Every project is so different and so unique and, based on that, my approach is to try and create something really different for each client, and to really tailor my response to them.”
Looking to the likes of Belgian, Danish and Scandinavian designers for inspiration, Stefan has come to develop his approach based on a sense of restraint. “My design style is quite minimalist,” he describes. “There are a lot of parallels between a muted European aesthetic and what I am trying to achieve.” Leaning more toward natural materials, he says, there is something innate about giving something a second life. “Anything that is highly textured or has a sustainable story associated with it,” he explains, “I am fascinated by – and, although it is specific to what will work best with each client, I spend a lot of time researching and exploring new ways to continue to develop how I work, who I work with and how to continue find joy in what I do.”
With the goal to continue expanding his network and collaborate with designers here and overseas, Stefan’s specialised offering in joinery design will no doubt continue to pick up speed, allowing the rest of us to see more of his considered resolve in the process.
