HAY launches Outdoor Market with Jasper Morrison exploring everyday life outdoors

Open air living, in its most unassuming forms, becomes the central theme of Outdoor Market, a curated collection developed by HAY in collaboration with Jasper Morrison. Rather than proposing a singular vision of outdoor design, the project unfolds as a quiet reflection on how design can accompany ordinary moments beyond the interior. From improvised picnics to still afternoons on a balcony, the collection reframes the outdoors not as an escape, but as an extension of daily life.

The collaboration emerges from a shared commitment to democratic design, a principle long embedded in HAY’s identity and echoed in Morrison’s practice. The collection draws from the understated logic of classic camping equipment, reinterpreted through a contemporary lens that privileges clarity and durability. Morrison’s long standing interest in anonymous, utilitarian objects becomes evident in the restrained forms and direct functionality of each piece, where design avoids spectacle in favour of precision and necessity.

Rather than foregrounding innovation as novelty, the project positions design as refinement. Objects are reduced to their essential gestures, allowing their purpose to remain legible. This approach situates Outdoor Market within a lineage of everyday design that values continuity over disruption, and familiarity over invention.

Material choices reinforce this ethos. Lightweight beech, treated for outdoor resilience, forms the basis of foldable furniture that can be easily stored and transported. Stainless steel elements introduce durability and a subtle industrial clarity, while handcrafted details such as Japanese brooms introduce a layer of cultural specificity and tactility.

Textiles play a quiet but defining role. Striped patterns, referencing traditional Basque fabrics discovered by Morrison, establish a visual continuity across the collection. Woven from recycled polyester, they bridge nostalgia and contemporary sustainability, embedding environmental awareness within an otherwise familiar aesthetic language.

Rather than functioning as a fixed set, Outdoor Market operates as a flexible system. The collection allows users to assemble temporary configurations according to context, whether in a garden, a park, or more remote landscapes. This adaptability reflects a broader shift in how outdoor space is perceived, not as a predefined setting, but as an open field shaped by individual rhythms and habits.

The project resists the idea of the outdoors as a separate domain requiring specialised design. Instead, it suggests continuity between interior and exterior life, where the same sensibility of comfort, utility, and simplicity can extend seamlessly across environments.