Lh Design Questionnaire with Scott Richler of Gabriel Scott

In this edition of Love Happens’ Design Questionnaire, join us as we take a peek inside Gabriel Scott, a design house and production studio creating contemporary collections of fine furniture and lighting led by founder and CEO Scott Richler. The Montreal-based studio was established to blend Scott’s design experience developed over many years working in architecture, fashion, and jewelry design. As an architect, Scott was often tasked with specifying high-end custom furniture for clients. He realized there was a market for bespoke furniture and lighting fixtures crafted using a holistic approach that would be specifically aimed at designers and architects who need control over every detail of a building’s design.

Meet Scott Richler, founder & CEO of Gabriel Scott, in the Lh Design Questionnaire

The experience Scott earned from the time he spent designing jewelry informs a lot of his inspiration and process when designing lighting fixtures. His work focuses on fine details, craftsmanship, and exquisite materials to create large-scale jewelry creations that can be easily customized for residential, hospitality, or commercial projects. The exclusive line is available to view at their flagship showrooms in New York and London as well as through a global network of luxury lighting and furniture retailers. Read on and be inspired by Scott!

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Personally, I think you need to embrace the happiness around you rather than search for or focus on ‘perfect’ happiness. I really appreciate the moments in between this and the next, which gives me time to reflect as opposed to focusing on that search for happiness. 

From a business perspective, I come from a creative background, so if I could focus on the creative component and make that my everyday life, this would be the perfect idea of happiness in my working day.

I also take great happiness from working with amazing clients who are designing the very best luxury interior residential and hospitality projects. This past year has seen Gabriel Scott produce the Welles Reimagined lighting series with global interior designers, including Kelly Hoppen, David Rockwell, Michelle Gerson, Sybille de Margerie, Alessandro Munge, and Guan Lee, which has been an amazing experience and a particular area of happiness for me to have these renowned designers reinterpreting a piece of my work, the Welles.

Working with Gabriel Scott’s global team is always a point of happiness for me. We have a large team in my hometown of Montreal, Canada, where the production and design teams are based, and it’s always a joy to get back there and work with the studio on new designs. And then our teams in London and New York allow me the opportunity to travel and opens up new markets to us in Europe and the rest of the world.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

There’s the obvious great personal achievement which is my family, I will forever be proud of my children. For me, finding a way to continue to do what I want in life is an achievement. I feel privileged to have carved out an opportunity for me to do what I love and feel genuinely passionate about and to get enjoyment out of what I do feels like both a personal and professional achievement. Gabriel Scott enables me to really explore creatively and push the boundaries of our abilities. Being able to live off what you enjoy is my greatest achievement.

What profession does your alter ego have?

A painter for sure. I have been lucky enough to create art in what I do and I get to paint on the side but I wouldn’t have an elaborate or eccentric ‘alter ego’. The idea of affecting someone’s space on a two dimensional level is very exciting to me.

The design you will never forget.

The Welles. It’s Gabriel Scott’s most renowned lighting series and can be seen in so many memorable projects, so it’s an obvious choice for me. The Welles is a simple piece but it allows you to make so many things out of something so simple, you can create a much more complex language out of what is essentially a development of a hexagon shape that we all learn in geometry. It’s a familiar shape but is not something you necessarily come across in your everyday life. The Welles has been the product that came from an idea that has proved to have so much longevity and has that much possibility, being able to reinterpret it in so many ways makes it a truly unforgettable design. 

I am currently working with Dr. Guan Lee (of Material Architecture Lab and Grymsdyke Farm) on a series that is essentially interlocking forms, enabling a simple object to become something else. Building on something small, simple, and understandable that can create so much opportunity that can be interpreted in a different manner by anyone is an interesting idea that I think will be well received.

Your favorite design material.

In general, it’s metals. I come from a background of architecture where metal was present. I then went into jewelry, and metal was present. Between when I was in jewelry and now, I had a shop where I did metal work, I created bespoke pieces out of brass and bronze and polished metals, and it made me really see the immense possibilities that metals provide.

If anyone has the opportunity to work with metal you will understand it feels a bit like alchemy, where you take something very simple, very minimal, and you turn it into something more than it is. Taking gold, or whatever you are working with, and shaping it to the form that you want, metal really gives you unlimited opportunity to explore. 

Glass is similar in its opportunity, but because I haven’t had the personal connection with glass as a material, I am still learning about it. I suppose it would be a really interesting avenue to be able to spend some time working with glass myself. 

What inspires you?

I draw most of my inspiration from things that are abstractly connected to what I do rather than directly. I rarely see a lighting fixture and get inspired by that; I more often see a piece of art, whether it be a sculpture, painting, or fashion piece, which impacts the way I think about something. Artists mix materials in unusual ways because they have the liberty to do that. They are not tied by a function to what they do, so they have more license to explore.

Your design mission.

With design, I have the incredible opportunity to impact space, be that a residential or hospitality setting. When looking at a painting, you see a flat plane, it informs the space around it as well as the space between the observer and the painting. In the same way, my pieces impact the space a person lives in or is visiting, so when that person is confronted by a Gabriel Scott lighting fixture or piece of furniture, they create that relationship between themselves and the piece. 

You live with many objects, so why does someone choose to put that object in their environment? It’s the appreciation of the piece and the positive relationship someone has for it. So my objective as a designer is to enrich the experience that someone has with any of our pieces. For example, the Myriad takes inspiration from nature, and this piece has been featured from townhouses in central London to a bar window in Milan. It’s a popular choice for its arboreal feel and presents an element of nature while still achieving its function within the space.

Our Portugal-based publisher KOKET makes décor too :), what comes to your mind when you imagine a collaboration between Gabriel Scott and KOKET?

I see KOKET drawing inspiration from adornment; I would try and marry that idea with my background in jewelery through creating something that suits their more maximalist style. Blending those two styles, I’m sure, could produce something rather interesting.

Love happens when…

Love happens when you embrace. Embrace opportunity, only you can maximize those opportunities. Give yourself time to embrace and take on those opportunities, and you will find love. Be that in work, life, or self.

Explore more Gabriel Scott at gabriel-scott.com.

Feature Image: Welles Chandelier by Gabriel Scott in an interior by Gramercy Design ( Photo by Matthew Plackett Photography/Courtesy of Gabriel Scott)

More to Love!

Interior Inspiration Awaits