Five Designers Shape an Intimate Room in Hand-Tufted Wool
A window to close, a ladder to climb, a chair to rest on: the eleven rugs of ROOM each picture part of a private interior. Trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort curated the collection for El Espartano, the Argentinian rug maker, which hand-tufted every piece in pure wool in Argentina.
Four designers joined Edelkoort, who also made work for the collection herself: Carole Baijings, Kiki van Eijk, Ina Meijer and Mariola López Mariño. The rugs were developed with the El Espartano Design Lab in Buenos Aires and premiered in April 2026 at Galleria Rossana Orlandi during Milan Design Week. In October the collection travelled to Piet Hein Eek in Eindhoven for Dutch Design Week. ROOM is also one of eight finalists in the textile design category of the Dezeen Awards 2026, selected from more than 4,300 entries from 91 countries.
A Refuge Woven From Many Voices
The starting point is the room as a place of shelter in turbulent times. Each designer translated that idea in her own way, so the pieces read as a single body of work rather than a range of variations. The rugs are limited editions. In Milan several hung on the wall like large paintings.
One rug is built from soft blocks of slate blue, sage, dusty pink and white. Fine carved lines run through each field, like brushstrokes, and a grey border frames the whole. Another piece sets teal and coral shapes on a mossy green ground, with tufts of long, shaggy pile rising above the denser surface.
Eight Decades of Tufting in Buenos Aires
El Espartano has been making rugs for more than 80 years, for homes, offices and hotels. Hand-tufting lets its makers vary the pile from piece to piece: cut and looped yarn, short and long, flat and sculpted. That freedom gives each design its relief. The company also works with other designers, such as Cristian Mohaded, whose Arco collection draws on Art Deco architecture. In July 2026 three of its commercial ranges received Indoor Advantage Gold certification for low VOC emissions, relevant for WELL and LEED projects.
Hand-tufted wool returns often at design events, from the layered Strata textiles at Dutch Design Week 2026 to the Uprooted rug made from deadstock wool.
Next Stop: London
The winners of the Dezeen Awards 2026 are announced on 16 November at the Royal Opera House in London. Two other El Espartano rugs, Tree of Joy and Vigilant Gorilla, were selected for INNER CHILD: Playing with Design in Stockholm, an exhibition curated by Edelkoort and Philip Fimmano that opened on 10 October.
Source & images: El Espartano