Monday, June 20, 2011

An excerpt from LAGO APPARTAMENTO - A Living Showroom

This is an excerpt from a book about LAGO's Appartamento concept. The book covers the story behind the appartamento concept and some short dialogues and reflections tangential to this idea. The book is currently floating around, so if you are interested in reading more from it, come find me, it might be in my hands. Anyway, I've copied an interesting section regarding a dialogue with Marco Bettiol (VIU) about the future and changes in the design world. Enjoy!

 

Re-inventing Made in Italy Dialogue with Marco Bettiol

               With the appartamento, LAGO presented a highly innovative project and comment on the new values of design. In the Appartamento we organized a series of seminars, where we addressed the various elements that seemed to us to be the important factors for design – now and in the future.

                During these seminars a number of interesting issues emerged regarding the evolution of design. A particularly interesting one was the conceptualisation of design in terms of it being a sense-making activity. We must now move from designing objects to designing meanings, because the new values of design are not about producing more and more objects (the world is already overflowing with them) but instead to produce meanings and to focus more on the immaterial side of the product. We believe that design has to be more about making sense of the world around us and to provide and create the new services and strategies that are really needed. Also of course products, but those products will be directly related to meanings.



                This does not mean that aesthetic values are no longer important. Not at all, aesthetics are still significant but not as a value per se. we have to focus on how people relate to and with the product, about how the life of the product will be important for the user. Products, or aspects of them, are undoubtedly important, but we must improve on this whole approach. And one way to improve it is to give sense and meaning to the products around us – I think this will be the future.

                Another element, that is very important and which we also discussed during the seminars, is the issue of sustainability. Designers and firms need to re-consider the whole process and product life cycle: this is a compelling and important, but we must improve on this whole approach. And one way to improve it is to give sense and meaning to the products around us – I think this will be the future.

                Another element, that is very important and which we also discussed during the seminars, is the issue of sustainability. Designers and firms need to re-consider the whole process and product life cycle: this is a compelling and important question that design in the future should be able to answer. Consumers are more environmentally conscious than in the past and they are a now looking for sustainable products. Sustainability has become one of the new values that design must take on board.  Particularly because making a product sustainable is not just a matter of applying new technical solutions but of considering the complexity both of the production and the use of the product. Designers have a great responsibility from this point of view.

                The discussions in the seminars were also helpful because thy addressed the issue of the important new emergent Italian design scene. In Italy a whole new generation of firms are emerging at the moment, all of whom are focusing on new design values. So with regard to “made in Italy”, some young companies are definitely inventing a whole new approach. These are not the large consolidated companies, but smaller and less established ones. Young creative people especially find in these smaller companies the opportunity to take more risks and to express themselves in a way that would otherwise be limited. The alchemy created by the need of small firms to compete and the talents of a new generation of creative people is a very powerful and strong base for sustaining innovation. Entrepreneurship (the capacity for taking risks) and creativity (the capacity to exploring the new) are the two important ingredients and the heart of the new emergent Italian design scene.

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