Volker Haug Studio

Volker Haug Studio is a decorative lighting practice based in Melbourne. The studio creates lighting informed by a sense of discovery and experimentation, with works produced by a skilled team of designers and makers. With a focus on pared back, immaculate designs imbued with a sense of playfulness and pronounced individuality, the studio has established a long tradition of detailed, elegant lighting.

Operating from a converted 1940s warehouse the design team works collaboratively to produce their designs. With the ethos that any idea is considered achievable, they explore unconventional materials and methods, resulting in works that are unique and adventurous, while always retaining the studio’s signature clean, rational aesthetic.

Designed with longevity in mind, the studio produces every order to the unique specifications of the space each piece will inhabit. In addition to their customisable decorative ranges, the design team works on site-specific projects and limited edition works. The studio’s commissions and collection designs are represented internationally in residential, commercial and hospitality projects.

Founder Volker Haug began his career working under pioneering Australian lighting designer Geoffrey Mance. From these early professional encounters sprang a perspective on lighting design that is unrestricted by traditional ways of thinking about the medium. This formative experience and his own circuitous path into design fostered the sense of experimentation and joy that formed the basis of his own practice. Citing the wellspring for this thinking, Haug recalls:

“I lived in Berlin during the early 1990s just after the wall came down. I recall it being an intense and transformative time both personally and politically. A city that was segregated suddenly opened up and along with its borders, people’s thinking expanded. It was a city that had literally been broken, but by operating as a community there was the possibility to rebuild something new together.”

Remaining true to this sense of community, possibility, and reconstruction, Haug has formed an international design family in his adoptive hometown of Melbourne and, over time, a unique internal design language has emerged, making for the studio’s creative articulation today.