The Sound of Walala

Music is often paramount to an artist’s creative practice. It is however rare* that the outside world gets an insight into the sounds spilling out of a designer’s studio stereo system.

“Music is important to me whilst I work. It helps me concentrate on the work at hand and it also makes the process more enjoyable,” says designer Camille Walala. “I love relaxing sounds. I listen to a lot of disco and funk, some ambient electronic music and sometimes classical.”

On 16 November the doors flew open to Sonos’s first European concept store. Nestled on the cobbled street of Seven Dials in Covent Garden, the store has been designed to showcase the brand’s range of music systems in an environment designed to replicate a home. The space will also host exhibitions, screenings and other events.

The store has been designed around two glass Listening Houses where customers can test-drive Sonos products and blare out their own music collections. Camille, together with landscape painter Neil Raitt, has been tasked with designing the interior of one of the Listening Houses.

Camille’s space is unmistakably Walala and comes decorated with an asymmetric grid of geometric patterns punctuated with lashings of bold colour. Blue is the most prominent colour in the pod simply as a result of the designer’s long running love affair with the hue. “If I had to choose a favourite colour it would be blue,” says Camille. “My pattern and colour choices are always bold.”

The space has been further embellished with an array of books and objects designed by some of Camille’s most-admired creatives: Pietro Russo, Studio Arhoj, Darkroom London, Tom Dixon and Romina Gris.

The concept store opened on 16 November and Camille’s designs will remain on display until next year, when a new artist will be given the opportunity to stamp their signature on the space.

*That said, London-based illustrator Rose Blake does have a highly addictive website dedicated to exactly that >> studiomusic.fm