Benjamin Hubert

To coincide with London Design Festival this September, design studio Benjamin Hubert is relaunching as experience design agency Layer. With a focus on design as a responsible tool for change, there'll be three new products at designjunction, including a wearable device to monitor carbon footprints and a collection box for Maggie's. Cate St Hill spoke to Benjamin Hubert about his new venture

What made you decide to set up experience design agency Layer?
I set up Layer to use design as a more powerful tool. Design should be used for making things better, creating change, challenging the zeitgeist - it's about using design for what its intended for, not just as a tool to develop luxury goods.

Benjamin Hubert

What is the difference between Layer and the former Benjamin Hubert Ltd?
We had been practising for the past 18 months the kind of approach you will see presented by Layer, a very much more research-led and human focused approach to design. So really thinking about the problems that are here now and coming next, and how we tackle those demands. We want to use design to create solutions rather than 'nice-tohaves'.

I think we've established a nice career in the five years of Bejamin Hubert Ltd, we've worked with some great companies in the luxury field of furniture and interior objects, but increasingly now we're working with partners that demand design to work harder for them. They want tools to drive more business but also to answer the demands of how we're living and the constraints on the world.

What will you be showcasing at London Design Festival?
There are three projects but I'd like to focus on two of them. One, we've been working with The Carbon Trust to develop an app and wearable to educate consumers about how much energy they're using, so that they can make decisions on how they can live better to impact less on the climate. It's an engaging tool for people to be able to win rewards and have a really accessible picture of what energy consumption is. I think energy consumption is shrouded in a lot of jargon, so this is a platform that enables people to understand better and have fun doing so, to drive change. It's a human tool, designed around how we live our lives at the moment.

A stand-out collection box has been developed for Maggie's

The other, we've been working with Maggie's cancer charity for the past year and we will continue to do so. They're very design-led. The collection box is a very ubiquitous product, made from OEM and sourced in China, that all the charities use. They're all exactly the same -- there's no point of difference.

The collection box for Maggie's was about taking this much overlooked product, celebrating it, making it special and part of what Maggie's is. We wanted to make it more identifiable and, ultimately, raise more funds to support people going through a difficult time.

Is there anything you're particularly looking forward to at this year's LDF?
Obviously this is quite an important LDF for us, because we're repositioning and we're very much looking forward to seeing the industry's and the consumer's reactions to it. The projects we're presenting aren't the normal sort of projects you see at LDF; they're much more focused on what's happening in the world around us and trying to use design as a tool for change. We hope this is a good step and something that will be very interesting for LDF, not just more interior furnishings. This is the biggest design festival in the UK and it's on the world map, and we should be talking about issues that are more than just what you sit on. We have a responsibility at LDF to do that.

An app shows how much energy a person is using

What does the near future hold for Layer?
We've a really interesting pipeline; we're working with some of the most progressive brands in the world, such as Nike, Samsung, Aesop and Braun. We're driving change through these businesses to create experiences with more meaning and rethink the way we live our lives. The next six months hold some really exciting launches around improving quality of life for people with disabilities, furniture that is smarter, and how technology can be more human.