Geo Carved: origami rug by Ella Doran

Geo Carved: Ella Doran’s origami carpet, when textile becomes sculpture

Some objects quietly redefine the contours of contemporary design. The Geo Carved Rug, imagined by British designer Ella Doranis one of those creations that shakes up conventions while remaining rooted in ancestral know-how. At first glance, it looks like a rug. But very quickly, the eye lingers, tilts, explores the volumes. This carpet is not simply a support. It’s a living surface, a sculptural textile work at the crossroads of design and craftsmanship.

Inspiration: frozen origami

The Geo Carved Rug pattern clearly evokes the subtle folds of Japanese origami. But here, paper is replaced by a dense wool, hand-tufted in India using precise artisanal techniques. Thanks to hand-made cuts in the different layers of the rug, volumes appear. The folds seem to emerge naturally, as if a sheet of wool had been crumpled and stretched across the floor.

This play of reliefs creates a remarkable visual depth. Light catches certain areas, leaving others in shadow, giving the whole a moving dimension. The carpet becomes sculpture. Something happens, even when nothing moves.

Exceptional textile expertise

Geo Carved Rug is made from 100% New Zealand wool, renowned for its softness, strength and ability to retain dyes. Each piece is hand-tufted in specialized workshops, where craftsmen use a yarn gun to insert the wool into a stretched canvas. The raised areas are then meticulously cut by hand, to create the geometric pattern of bumps and hollows.

This process requires both rigor and artistic flair: too much trimming and the pattern loses its subtlety; too little, and the relief disappears. This manual gesture gives each rug a slight variation, a unique signature that escapes industrialization.

When design becomes silence

Geo Carved is not a screaming rug. It doesn’t rely on bright color or graphic overkill. And yet, it immediately captures attention. It’s an object of calm contrast, both discreet and powerful. Its language is one of volume, light and touch. In an interior, it acts as a silent center of gravity: it structures space without weighing it down, creating a zone of calm and elegance.

Its minimalist design adapts equally well to clean Nordic ambiences as to more expressive or eclectic decors. Available in pure white, slate blue or almond brown, it can become a neutral base or a strong accent, depending on the environment it inhabits.

✦ Can textile design evoke emotion? Geo Carved answers with relief, silence and the hand.

Ella Doran: the creator of a visual language

A multidisciplinary designer, Ella Doran has made a name for herself with her textile prints and artistic collaborations with the Victoria & Albert Museum and The Tate. With Geo Carved, she leaves the realm of the printed motif to explore that of three-dimensional matter. Here, no flat surface, but a textile landscape that unfolds underfoot.

Her approach is always based on close attention to materials and sensory storytelling. She designs objects that tell a story not through words, but through texture, light and the time we spend looking at them. The Geo Carved perfectly embodies this philosophy.

An obvious object

In an age saturated with images, noise and stimulation, this carpet proposes a different path. That of slow, embodied design, respectful of the hands that make it and the body that inhabits it. It proposes a way of inhabiting space that involves the senses, silence, light and shadow. As such, it is fully in keeping with HART’s editorial line: objects designed with art, with soul, with heart.