ukrainian designer victoria yakusha seeks softness through memory and material repair
celebrating the visible traces of touch
Clay, straw, linen, wood, and recycled fibers appear throughout the work of Victoria Yakusha in thick textured surfaces that carry visible traces of touch and labor. Across her interiors and furniture collections, materials retain their grain, density, and irregularity to create spaces that feel closely tied to landscape and long-term inhabitation.
Based in Kyiv, Yakusha has developed a design language which aligns with principals of Radical Softness through tactility and preservation through making. Her practice moves between architecture, interiors, objects, and installation work, though the projects remain connected through a consistent material language.
Walls absorb light softly and furniture appears compressed, carved, or pressed from raw compounds. Natural pigments and rough fibers create surfaces that seem to hold memory physically within them.
Victoria Yakusha. image courtesy Yakusha Studio
‘live design’ and the physicality of place
Designer Victoria Yakusha often describes her philosophy as ‘live design,’ a term connected to the idea that spaces and objects should remain tied to the environments and cultural histories from which they emerge. This approach becomes visible in her interiors through muted acoustics, raw textures, and handmade irregularities that slow the visual experience of a room.
The projects avoid decorative nostalgia. Instead, vernacular references become tools for continuity between past and present material practices. Ukrainian craft traditions, rural landscapes, and domestic rituals influence proportions, textures, and fabrication methods throughout the work.
Furniture from her FAINA collection often resembles geological formations or archaeological fragments shaped through hand-finishing and natural compounds. Many pieces appear intentionally porous and slightly uneven, allowing the physical qualities of the material to remain visible.
Duzhyi collection. image courtesy Yakusha Studio
ztista and architecture shaped through natural compounds
One of the clearest examples of this thinking appears through ztista, Victoria Yakusha’s experimental material composed from clay, straw, wood chips, cellulose, and recycled paper. Used across furniture and interior surfaces, the compound creates thick tactile forms with a matte, earth-heavy appearance.
The material carries particular significance within the theme of Radical Softness because it foregrounds environmental reciprocity and low-impact fabrication without turning sustainability into branding language. Surfaces made from ztista appear absorbent and dense, with visible fibers embedded throughout. The material changes subtly under light and shadow, emphasizing texture over smoothness. In Yakusha’s interiors, this physical density creates spaces that feel grounded in bodily experience and environmental proximity.
Her projects also resist the speed associated with highly industrialized production. Hand labor remains visible across casting, shaping, dyeing, and finishing processes. That emphasis on touch gives the work a different rhythm. Furniture and spaces seem designed to age gradually, gathering wear and material depth over time.
Victoria Yakusha Space, Yakusha Studio, Miami Florida, 2025. image courtesy Yakusha Studio
softness as cultural endurance
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Yakusha’s work has taken on an additional layer connected to cultural preservation and collective endurance. The projects increasingly speak to architecture and design as vessels for memory during periods of instability and displacement.
This context deepens the relationship between her work and Radical Softness. Softness, in this case, operates through continuity, protection, and environmental intimacy. The materials themselves become carriers of cultural identity through craft traditions, local resources, and embodied forms of making.
Spaces created by Yakusha often feel intentionally close to the body through scale, tactility, and atmosphere, creating environments shaped around habitation and emotional endurance instead of visual excess.
Vhory Interior, Yakusha Studio, Carpathian Region, Ukraine, 2022. image courtesy Yakusha Studio
ZTISTA Collection. image courtesy Yakusha Studio
Volyk Benches. image courtesy Yakusha Studio
Unit Space B15 Hall, Yakusha Studio, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2023. image courtesy Yakusha Studio
Grun’ big floor lamp. image courtesy Yakusha Studio
Grun’ chair. image courtesy Yakusha Studio
project info:
designer: Victoria Yakusha
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