• BOOK NOW
  • What’s On
  • News
  • Archive
  • Contact
  • Become a Friend
  • BOOK NOW

Designer Orla Reynolds featured in Irish Times

Home  /  News   /   Designer Orla Reynolds featured in Irish Times
Published: 17 May 2017
Back to news

Congratulations to Designer Orla Reynolds for her amazing work, and inclusion in the Irish Times series The Story of Home.
Orla has designed many of our in house, national & international touring productions, to high acclaim including James Joyce’s A Portrait Of The Artist As a Young Man directed by Jimmy Fay, Gerard Humphreys’ Lockdown, and Ledwidge directed by Anthony Fox.

Read the full article
The twists and turns of Irish designer Orla Reynolds’ career have been nothing if not dramatic. Dancing from the age of four, the ballet dancer from Artane was selected at age 12 to join the Kirov ballet in Russia but decided to stay and train in Dublin, eventually winning a place at the Urdang Dance Academy in London.

Not yet finished school, it was a dream come true until out of nowhere she developed an injury that was so rare in dancers that it took four years to diagnose. “It’s usually an injury that male rugby players get so they didn’t even consider it. Only one other dancer in Ireland, a lead from Riverdance, has experienced it,” she explains. “By the time they had figured it out and I had undergone surgery to fix it, my chance at a dance career was over. It was a terrible time.”

Picking herself up she decided to study furniture design. “I needed something I could be passionate about. I was still in love with the stage and couldn’t imagine not working on it. I had an idea that through furniture design I could move into theatre set design, which would get me back to what I loved.”

As she prepared for her final thesis she started thinking about the home and what was needed to make it work. “I had this blank canvas, the white walls and nothing in it. How can I make it function? This is when I started thinking about the home as a stage.”

The walls seemed to be the least-used part of the room, she says, so she set about trying to use them in a new way. She started with a bookcase but felt immediately that it was limited. “So I started thinking about each piece of furniture in terms of scene changes – how could I make a piece of furniture have more than one function. I could suddenly see the chairs and tables that a room needs integrated with its storage. It was a Eureka moment.”

From this, the Out of Nowhere range was born – a product range that she describes as dual-function transformer furniture. “There is a lot of multi-function furniture out there, but multi-function tends to mean that it operates one function at a time. My furniture can operate different functions at the same time and that suits how we all live,” she says, as she pulls four colourful dining chairs and a table from the skeleton of her bookcase. It’s a remarkable sight and one that has been entertaining people since she created it.

“I shot a short video to go with my thesis and it was picked up by an online design magazine called deezeen. It was amazing. The video went viral and suddenly we were getting orders from all over the world. The interest in Out of Nowhere was phenomenal and I wasn’t quite ready for it and wondered what on Earth am I going to do,” she says laughing.

Literally overnight she went from being almost-a-graduate to an already-launched designer with international orders. “The first thing we did was strengthen our patents. Then we set out on getting a licensing deal as I didn’t feel equipped to run manufacturing and distribution on that scale. I thought I could just be the designer.” Two years of negotiation were lost to this process but with such a steep learning curve she decided in 2014 that she would go it alone and she hasn’t looked back since.

The orders are still coming in from all over the world. Her biggest market is the US but she also ships to Australia, Singapore, Italy and beyond. “My customers tend to live in small spaces. They are usually professionals in apartments in major cities who are attracted to the look and feel of the bookcase but also to the way it fits into their lives. We also get quite a few art lovers who live in larger spaces and who say they are attracted to the feeling of Mondrian and Bauhaus in my work.”

She describes city life as an ideal for her and reflects on the experience of cities like New York where apartment living is common place. “My dream home is a tiny house. I think Irish people struggle with the idea of living in smaller spaces but I really like it. I don’t know where the idea came from that we need loads of space and then set about filling it with so much stuff.”
“We can have successful apartment living in Ireland but they have to be designed correctly. Storage is central to this. European apartment living always comes with additional storage and parking space. You don’t just get the square foot of the apartment. It’s a considered design approach and it works.”

The type of furniture we choose for our smaller homes matters too, she explains. “Very often people move into an apartment and then fill it with the same furniture they would have in a three-bed semi. It’s all too big and designed for a whole other kind of space. You have to choose your furniture differently to make it work.”

The most recent addition to her range is a striking table and stool set that is designed with apartments in mind. She wanted to create a piece that would be as functional and as surprising as her bookcase but stand out in its own right. She created a black and white table that has four stools built in that can be used in lots of different way. “I deliberately stripped it of colour so that it would be distinct in my range but also to give it its own identity. But I do love colour. It makes me happy and can be calming or exciting at the same time. We should use it more in our homes.”
Reynolds suggests that she’s sometimes shocked at the career path she’s ended up taking but at the same time she says she doesn’t see a huge difference between her dance career and her design career. “They both need discipline, the ability to deal with rejection, the strength to work through tough problems. I love designing for small homes. Our home is our base. It’s an anchor in life and we should create it in a way that reflects our dreams, our personal identity. I really love that I get to do that from here in my own home in Dublin.”

For more see orlareynolds.com

PRINCIPAL FUNDER

Newsletter

Receive latest news from The New Theatre directly to your inbox

Sign Up
Sign in Newsletter

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from TakeYourSeats.ie:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

Donate

You can help us continue to support new writing in Dublin

Make a Donation
Book Now
Previous Post
Next Post
  • Home
  • News
  • Archive
  • Donate
  • Your Visit
  • Hiring The Theatre
  • Contact

About Us

  • TNT Team
  • Our Board
  • What We Do
  • Child Protection
  • Connolly Books
  • Governance and Finance
  • History of The New Theatre
  • Links

New Writing

  • Submit a script
  • Learn More About New Writing
  • What’s On

Friends

  • Friends of The New Theatre
  • Become a Friend
43 Essex Street East
Temple Bar
Dublin 2
D02 XH96
+353 (0)1 670 3361
MAIL Contact

supporting institutions

Powered By
2025 The New Theatre

supporting institutions

43 Essex Street East
Temple Bar
Dublin 2
D02 XH96
+353 (0)1 670 3361 MAIL Contact
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
Cookie SettingsAccept All
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
SAVE & ACCEPT