Anderssen & Voll

Anderssen & Voll is a Oslo based design studio run by Torbjørn Anderssen and Espen Voll.

Torbjørn Anderssen and Espen Voll were born respectively in Elverum, 1976 and in Trondheim, 1965. They both come from creative backgrounds: Torbjørn is the son of a musician and a teacher, and Espen the son of a ceramist and an architect. After graduating from the “Bergen Academy of Art and Design” and the “Oslo National Academy of Art”, they went on to cofound the design group Norway Says in 2000. Norway Says were forerunners in a growing international orientation amongst Norwegian designers – at the same time drawing international interest to Norway’s emerging young design scene. Anderssen & Voll was established in 2009.

Their work spans from furniture, lighting, home accessories and textile design for some of Europe’s most renowned international brands. And several interior design projects sutch as Trattoria Popolare, Nedre Foss gård and the deign bar at Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair in 2019.

Torbjørn once described working with Espen as ”…. wearing an old pair of shoes with a pebble in one of them. After working with him for half of my life, it feels familiar but not very comfortable, as we rarely agree on anything initially.”

Espen once described working with Torbjørn as ”….being challenged on my own perceptions and views on what signifies a good design. Working together for almost 20 years is not a result of always agreeing on everything, but rather recognizing our differences as a way of bringing life into products.”

Rather than being defined by and confined to a specific way of being, Anderssen & Voll prefer to be open. They develop emotionally-driven designs. Their overall desire is to create designs with souls. To animate something inanimate. “We’re not dogmatic about it. We’re quite open. We start designing and watch a piece take on its own personality. It’s almost like breathing life into it.”

In 2015 Anderssen & Voll launched an in house brand, Nedre Foss collections, a brand of sustainable homeware objects rooted in Scandinavian design. The core of Nedre Foss is the notion of the century product + what is refered to as a sculptural Utility. “As a manufacturer, compared to the work we were doing within our existing collaborations, we found a sort of freedom to express a different set of attitude and language in objects”.

Anderssen & Voll have received numerous international awards for their work within furniture, lighting and home accessories, including Dezeen Award, the Wallpaper* Design Awards, the Red Dot and iF Awards, as well as other accolades for Best Designs and Best Designers of the year.