The full story

AeroCherub

A name built like its object.

AeroCherub: anatomy of a name

Aero

We spend most of our time indoors. Our experience of everyday life is largely dependent on the man-made structures, materials and objects that form our modern habitat. The story of AeroCherub's life unfolds between the walls of home (our place of sanctuary), at our work desks, restaurant tables, and within the greater infrastructure of the city.

Just like the weather, the atmosphere of the built environment has a profound effect on how we rest, think, feel, work, eat and socialize. The word Aero comes from that atmosphere.

Cherub

Spaces and objects must certainly be functional, but if they are to truly serve us, they must also attend to our bodies and emotions. At this moment, designing AeroCherub, we believe it's necessary to go beyond strict Rationalist and Modernist doctrines to resensualize the built environment with a feeling that embraces the whole human being and addresses our perception of space and all our sensory faculties. This requires slowing down the process to consider design from the perspective of human experience and sources of meaning. And so we found the second word: Cherub, an angel.

To us, good design transcends utility and aesthetics to become an emotional and social exercise: to create a framework for essential human needs of safety, identity, belonging and purpose.

AeroCherub with a red sphere on a black stone plinth in a window niche

AeroCherub with a blue sphere in a sunlit bedroom beside a desk

AeroCherub with a red sphere on a stone plinth beside a sheer curtain

AeroCherub with a blue sphere in a ray of sunlight beside a wooden corner chair

AeroCherub with a red sphere on a black block in a Paris room with sunlight

Part of nature

Over thousands of years of urbanization and industrialization, we have slowly but surely separated ourselves from nature. The human race has effectively left the nest and attempted to make itself more comfortable and successful via the mass production of works of art with man-made tools and technologies. Yet despite our best efforts, we can't escape the fact that our origins are in nature. We are part of it.

We use natural marble for the base of AeroCherub, so every base has its own veining, and no AeroCherub is the same as another. Each one is unique.

Lift it once and you understand: the weight surprises you. Each piece is made to order and packed in the studio. The last step of the making is yours: you fasten the figure to the base. It takes minutes and no tools.

The language of color

Beginning at birth, an organism gifted with sight learns the language of color to interpret the environment. Color provides clues to decipher if a thing is hot or cold, safe or dangerous, edible or toxic. That is why we chose white, red or blue as the main colors of AeroCherub, colors that feel safe in any room.

Over time, we want the color of AeroCherub, initially a biological interpretation of color for survival, to become layered with its own complex emotional and cultural associations and your personal narratives. The world becomes literally saturated with meaning. Hence, a medium as direct and deep-seated as the color of AeroCherub, with all its physiological effects, cultural and identity signifiers, and innately alluring beauty, is a powerful design tool to be wielded with sensitivity.

AeroCherub with a red sphere on a white block in a Paris room

I. Mind and Body

Our making of AeroCherub starts from being guided by the body and mind rather than by trends or technology: we aim to create sculptures that not only look good but that also feel good. It is about accommodating our artisans through empathic design, and never treating our customers as mere spectators of an aesthetic creation. We consider our work as a facilitation of well-being, as a distillation of aesthetics that resonate with our customers and their homes, and as a system that supports the universal needs of each customer. Each project, whether AeroCherub or our other designs, is imbued with this intrinsic quality: a simplicity that carries bigger ideas.

We have dedicated the last 15 years to the pursuit of human-centric architecture and design, and artwork by artwork, have honed a philosophy and international design approach that we call “Soft Minimalism.” With humility, we have built our ideas on thousands of years of aesthetic evolutions and on the incredible insights of master craftspeople and designers working before us and beside us. These lessons merge with those we have learned along the way and with the influences of our Scandinavian context.

We hope to offer a work of good design, and each story of AeroCherub, so that our customers understand clearly and feel more deeply what they are about to buy. Our task:

AeroCherub with a red sphere on a white block beside a shearling armchair in a brown room

to use space and matter as mediators between body and mind.

We make AeroCherub for this task.

AeroCherub with a blue sphere on a black block in a terracotta stair niche

AeroCherub with a red sphere in a niche of a plastered stair wall

AeroCherub with a blue sphere on a travertine plinth between two chairs

AeroCherub with a red sphere on a plinth beside an oak cabinet

AeroCherub with a blue sphere on a low plinth in a calm living room

Form and soul

It is human nature to search for narrative in all things. We tell the story of AeroCherub through its details, materials and the painstaking work of skilled craftspeople.

We have cultivated our habit for storytelling and for understanding stories over millennia, earning the human mind special status within the animal kingdom and allowing the evolution of complex technologies and societies. The hands of highly skilled artisans shaped both AeroCherub's form and its soul.

If you have the chance to own an AeroCherub, you will feel the weight of the marble, cool under your hand. When you look at the face, you see a story, either made by us or projected by you. The body is made with meticulous care, and built to last.

AeroCherub with a red sphere beside a Christmas tree and wrapped gifts

THE ART OF SLOW CRAFT

At The Soft Minimal, we reject the culture of mass production and fast consumption. AeroCherub is a commissioned art piece, crafted specifically for you.

When you place an order, the journey of your sculpture begins through two distinct phases:

PHASE 1: THE CRAFTING PROCESS (3 to 5 Days)

Shaping: every fold of the drapery is formed crisp and defined before finishing begins.
Curing & Stabilization: The sculpture undergoes a resting period to allow the material to stabilize, ensuring lifelong durability.
Hand-Finishing: Our artisans meticulously sand, polish, and inspect every millimeter of the surface.

II. A Sensorial Role to Play

For works of art to reconcile our relationship with the world and enhance the quality of life, they should engage all senses holistically. We ask ourselves, “How should this space or object make someone feel?”

The answer guides the selection and arrangement of interrelated elements, each with a sensorial role to play. In this way, art is a language expressed from one human body to another.

III. Moments to Return To

Through the design and making of AeroCherub, we invite you into our thought process and hope you may have the opportunity to own one for your home or workplace. We have chosen a thematic categorization of spaces, details and materials (rather than a disciplinary one) to provide a philosophical perspective on AeroCherub. The complementary essays on this page elaborate on the beliefs and goals that underpin Soft Minimalism and will hopefully prove useful to you long after they've been read.

For those ultra-curious about the new works to come, you can sign up for our email newsletter just below, to hear of them or to read more of our Journal and our customers' stories.

Ultimately, we hope The Soft Minimal will give you moments of visual, tactile and cerebral pleasure to return to over time. The insights presented in these pages are expressed with acknowledgement and gratitude for the many minds and skilled artisans, some famous and some underrated, that have guided our practice, as well as the many out there who are thinking along the same lines. There is a lot of work to be done to resensualize the built world and, thankfully, we are not working in a vacuum. We hope to inspire and be inspired, and to launch many more works, for years to come.