F/List has held an official opening for its expanded future laboratory, the F/Lab. The Austria-headquartered business describes the F/Lab as its centre of innovation; a dynamic hub for creative thinking, cross-discipline collaboration, and imaginative experimentation.

F/List specialises in the design, production and installation of luxury interiors for business and private jets, exclusive residences and yachts (the latter offered by the 100% subsidiary F/Yachting).

The commercial launch of the F/Lab marks its transition from an in-house concept, which has already developed products, to being “an essential pillar in the F/List innovation strategy”, the company explained.

Building on 20 years of experience in the aviation sector, F/Lab originally evolved as an in-house incubator that was encouraged to challenge traditional manufacturing and the product status-quo. It now sits at the core of a new customer interaction strategy, with a particular focus on innovation, technology and sustainability. The formal addition to the F/List brand portfolio represents a shift in market approach.

“With the F/Lab expansion, we are demonstrating that we are much more than just a manufacturer fulfilling design briefs,” said Katharina List-Nagl, CEO of F/List. “We are introducing the concept of 361° insight, which will see our colleagues not just visualising our customers’ world but working in tandem with them to realise their design dreams. Many of our customers own multiple high-value assets, and with our latest approach, we’ll seamlessly support the interior design and development of their jets, yachts, interior spaces and residences across their portfolio, in partnership, from inception to installation.”

The F/Lab today benefits from the talents of a project-specific fluctuating in-house staff of around 35 people. The F/Lab includes modern equipment, workshops and testing areas, along with a showroom for demonstrating concepts.

The multidisciplinary F/Lab team of engineers, designers and technologists will continue collaborating with experts from academia, transportation, design and industry to identify, define and explore concepts and solutions that reimagine the world of interiors. The F/Lab is also a think tank for sustainability, exploring eco-friendly alternatives and strategies.

“Our team’s ideas converge to ensure form, function and ingenious thinking, which result in unprecedented features that enhance comfort, functionality and aesthetic appeal for every interior,” said List-Nagl.

Initial F/Lab concepts have included the Shapeshifter F/Lab Morphing Sideledge table concept, whereby a real wood veneer table is deployed seamlessly from the sideledge. Other developments include Whisper Leather, produced from plant-based raw materials; and Linfinium, a linseed-based compound with applications ranging from countertops to flooring. The Red Dot-winning F/Lab Aenigma product portfolio fuses jewellery techniques with aerospace technology to combine elements as varied as ground mother-of-pearl and apricot pits to create materials that can be customised in terms of colour, texture and thickness for use on any interior surface.

The launch event on 16 May welcomed movers and shakers in the design, aviation, yachting and private residence industries. The event included a panel discussion led by Raphael Gielgen, Vitra’s Trendscout; along with Martin Redmayne, chairman and editor-in-chief of The Superyacht Group; Dr. Julia Riedmeier, luxury brand strategist and founder of CodeLuxe; Andrew Muirhead, VP of OEM and engineering services at Lufthansa Technik; Richard Hein, founder and chairman of The A Group; Alex Beaugeard, design and strategy expert; and F/List’s List-Nagl.

The panel debated and discussed the future of interior design and what customers will need and expect from multifunctional spaces.

“At F/List, we are more than a supplier,” said List-Nagl. “We connect with customers at a deeper level so that dreaming becomes doing. With our new 361° vision, we are revolutionising markets to connect with customers at a deeper level that goes way beyond their expectations in co-creating their design dreams. F/Lab can support yachts, jets, helicopters and exclusive residential spaces, and that’s a unique quality.”