Witte Studio

CURL for Stop/Go

I was invited to make a doorstop for the Stop/Go exhibition during 3daysofdesign 2026. This project was very different compared to the production focused design approach I am used to. It was both a risk and a beautiful excuse to make something quirky and unique, guided solely by a narrative and setting aside the constraints of industrial production, cost and material-efficiency – guidelines I still believe in and to which I remain committed. Working on CURL made me feel like a design student again.

‘The Soo’, ‘The Baron’, ‘The Egg’, ‘The Fluke’ or ‘Robbie Dow’ – in the early days of curling, before standardization led to what we now consider a curling stone, curlers in Scotland had highly individual, hand-crafted stones with unique nicknames that described their distinctive appearance and special features. The curlers would head into the mountains and riverbeds to find what they believed to be the best stones. They would shape them only as much as necessary and add a simple handle. These stones were made the same way. Their special feature is to stop doors.

Initially the 2026 Winter Olympics drew my attention to curling and let me into a rabbit hole of how curling stones are produced today as well as they were made in the past. Inspired by that, the concept was developed very quickly. The expedition to find a proper stone led me to a nearby quarry of red quartz porphyry – only thirty minutes away from the studio. This kind of stone is very present in the city of Halle as well as in the surrounding area - you will find countless cobbled streets, structual walls and old farm houses that are made of it. And so, quite naturally, CURL also became a reflection of the region.

Title:

Curl

Type:

Doorstop

Client:

Stop/Go Exhibition by HahnCuestaWolf

Goethe Institute Copenhagen

Materials:

Quartz porphyry, steel, lacquer

Year:

2026

Role: