Ruckstuhl Teppichmanufaktur in Langenthal – Inspiration 01TRH Joshua tuftingroboter joshua

Ruckstuhl Volume 01 - Trix & Robert Haussmann Collection

Imagination

In his free time, Joshua flies drones. This helps him with his work at the screen. It is his visual imagination that makes it possible to design the carpets from the Trix & Robert Haussmann collection in such a way that they become works of art.
When Trix and Robert Haussmann, this brilliant architect and designer couple, created the first designs for a carpet for the interior of the Zug Cantonal Bank in 1987, Joshua was not even born yet. The Haussmanns also did not work with computers – they still translated their ideas onto paper with a pen. And Stripes, this legendary piece of Swiss design history, which Ruckstuhl is now reissuing in the Trix & Robert Haussmann Collection, was originally created as a (huge) one-of-a-kind piece by hand.
Ruckstuhl Teppichmanufaktur in Langenthal – Designer Untershcrift Trix Haussmann stripesround
Every newly created design was personally approved by Trtix Haussmann.
Ruckstuhl Teppich aus Recyclingwolle STRIPES – Detailansicht
The first Stripes, serial number 2acmm26z, in production

Times have changed. Today, it means: vectorized data for robot tufting. That not only sounds complicated, it is. Because even if a carpet appears flat, it is still a three-dimensional object. For the carpets from the Trix & Robert Haussmann Collection, there is indeed a design on paper, a two-dimensional drawing showing how the color gradient should be, where black and where white – but translating that into a wool carpet is a complex process. And it becomes a challenge for a carpet like Stripes, which depicts a fold with the corresponding shadows.

But first, the term tufting must be explained. It is a fascinating story, much older than that of the Haussmanns: The usual process was already known in ancient times – a needle penetrates from the back of a backing material and pushes the yarn (or wool) to the front, where it remains either as a loop or as cut pile.

In 1895, a young American woman, Catherine Evans, wanted to give her mother a bedspread – and created it using the almost forgotten tufting method. She was so successful with her blankets that she soon hired employees, and tufting became so popular that the first machines were developed around 1920. Today, tufting is the most common method worldwide for making carpets.

Ruckstuhl Teppichmanufaktur in Langenthal – Inspiration 01TRH Joshua tuftingroboter files

In robot tufting, as used for the Haussmann Collection, Joshua now comes into play. He has to translate the Haussmann designs on the computer so that they can also be processed in robot tufting, meaning: three-dimensionally.

To do this, he writes a new program for each carpet, taking into account how the individual threads run – and what visual effect they create. Joshua’s favorite hobby, flying drones, helps him with this, as it allowed him to develop his visual imagination early on – and he can now apply it to carpets like Stripes, Dégradé, and Atlantis. It is a continuous learning process, trial and error, then improving. Because while it doesn’t really matter where you start and stop on the Haussmanns’ drawing, it does with a carpet. Many factors, including customer wishes, also have to be considered.

But Joshua has it under control now, he can devote more time to his hobby again.

MetaobjectDrop 03.09.2025
Inspiration Know-How Reportage

Designer

Haussmann

Produkte

Ruckstuhl Haussmann Kollektion bei den Zurich Design Weeks – Gesamtansicht der Ausstellung Stripes Privé Produktion des Ruckstuhl ATLANTIS Designteppichs in der Teppichmanufaktur Atlantis Ruckstuhl Teppich DEGRADE in 70080 – Lausanne Dégradé
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