Not the end of the world: In conversation with Ruud Belmans

This article first appeared in Mix Interiors #232

Words: Chloé Petersen Snell

At this year’s rather gloomy Clerkenwell Design Week, WeWantMore’s co-founder and creative director Ruud Belmans is speaking at Muuto’s showroom, the room packed with a slightly damp audience keen to hear about the studio’s work with global giant McDonald’s. A week later, and with the imminent arrival of its London outpost, Belmans joins me virtually from WeWantMore’s Antwerp office.

Studying industrial product design at university, Belmans became disillusioned with designing technical consumer goods shortly after graduating – preferring the design language of places and products – and after freelancing for a number of interior design projects his interest in commercial design grew. It’s this unusual start that provides him with a unique approach to his work, preferring to start with viewpoints and visual cues rather than conventional layouts. “You experience products and that’s how I create interiors, like you’re in the design. What do I see, how do the proportions of the space work?”