Frank Lloyd Wright to Mies van der Rohe, many architects have affected the design of products on a smaller scale . While some argue that the industrial design is not the place of an architect, many would beg to differ. The following article, originally published on the Curial design, describes various architects involved in industrial design today.
The architects who take a break from the built environment and turning their attention to the smallest design articles are most often motivated - at least initially - by they consider necessary. They struggle to find the perfect furniture, signage and lighting for their interiors, and convince their customers that are the perfect people to conceive.
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These architects quickly a taste for small scale and then track down the possibilities to design other elements, in the hope that some may go into mass production. This is further fueled by the "big names" that are solicited by manufacturers to use their signature to the product brand. Although there is a logic to this sequence of events, it still begs the question: why all those who can to design a building bother with anything smaller
the perception is that the buildings? are long-term and far-reaching, match fees commander. Products, on the other hand, can also take some time to materialize, but it is unlikely to be compensated similarly. In addition, architects are trained to design buildings, so why not let the small stuff to product specialists, industrial and furniture? But despite these apparent drawbacks, some architects are reluctant to stick to their knitting and increasingly turning-disciplinary duo.
Of course, trained architects have always diversified in this way, Gio Ponti, via Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, with their output entering the pantheon "classic" .
court of the Big-brand large manufacturers names of architects add their creativity and congratulations to projects. A visit to any iteration of the Milan Furniture Fair will reinforce this. Today it is a popular quest to established practices and up-and-coming. So while Renzo Piano Building Workshop has a Wind in Italy, London firm Burwell Deakins created some benching reading club; and while Foster + Partners is behind the lights, trays, pens and even airline seats, young architects in the studio in London provided a study center in a Philippine slum.
The current trend among the great names is to carve a niche product design themselves that has the potential to become autonomous. Both Fosters and Zaha Hadid Architects commit considerable resources in this direction, the first with a unit of industrial design in expansion and the second with a retail site for its premium 'objects'.
the roots of all these companies are usually planted very early in the existence of such practices. The furniture was "part of our repertoire from day one," according to Maha Kutay, product director at ZHA. Similarly, product design has always been part of Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands description, inspired by fathers of the three founders, who were production engineers.
At Fosters, 'our first forays into the design of products in 1978 were really in need, "said partner and head of industrial design Mike Holland. "At that time, the studio was booming, but it was impossible to find all the furniture on the market that could meet its needs, such as tables that could be adjustable for meetings, editing or display. Nick Burwell Burwell Deakins echoed this: "We are the default product designers because we find a need for a product that we can not buy. Thus zigzag benching the corporate system, Connect, which meets modern teaching methods.
This sense of necessity takes on a new urgency in the nascent studio practice, because the nonprofit plans to work on each joint effort with a disadvantaged community. So when her study center for an orphanage and a school called Streetlight in the city of Tacloban need desks and chairs, he has held workshops with residents to design and manufacture products. Men and women in the region have been paid for their efforts, but while being a good source of work, such a collaborative approach of the noblest intentions. "The main goal of our product design is to build a sense of ownership and responsibility among the people who will use, maintain and transform the building after leaving the site, says architect Alex Furunes.
He and his colleagues hope to be able to reconstruct the study center, which was destroyed in the typhoon last year, but in the meantime, they use an approach similar collaboration in India. "In the workshops, we discovered that one of the old farmers Nathai Kaka, has woven with jute rope, 'said Furunes. "He taught the rest of the villagers so that all parents wove a chair for their own child to use in the classroom.
This non-commercial joint effort method is a million miles from the experience of most conventional businesses. The usual way is for architects to suggest that they also take on the responsibility of the interiors of their construction elements. "A doorknob is a building handshake," says Adriana Natcheva whose Groves Natcheva Architects firm designed a "bronze handle that was made to measure by hand from a client." His last piece of furniture was "a simple desk made of a single piece of steel bent, with a leather belt on top held by magnets."
But the economy of such a custom design are not always simple, and many architects find themselves paying a disproportionate amount of time apart even if they are "right" door furniture. "If you watched a ruthless financial position you would not do it. It would take me away from building design," says Nick Burwell. "It is a question how much love you are willing to put in something, and love is free.
One way to get that out is to get these expensive designs on the market, an approach that Foster + Partners took in its first days. Therefore, a height-adjustable table designed for Renault was then manufactured by Tecno as Nomos. Similarly, Burwell Deakins very successful conference Connect theater seating, which was originally created for Loughborough Design School, entered production through racing furniture.
And while Connect 'could be a loss leader', it will act "as an introduction to people we do not know," says Burwell. "We will continue to develop Connect, as there will be a lot of renovation work in the future. So there is an opportunity for us to demonstrate an understanding of our field, because people buy furniture more often they buy new buildings.
The next step on the way to the product design is to design independent elements of the architecture of an architect. Here is how the unity of industrial design Foster + Partners spends much of his time these days, says Holland. "Our industrial designers also work independently, if ordered directly by manufacturers or the development of self-initiated products that emerge from research and internal development.
Similarly, Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands has recently produced the Coda range of street furniture for Woodhouse, and is putting the finishing touches to a carbon fiber and leather platform to auction houses around the world Bonham. The platform has an incredible cantilever structure that allows the auctioneer to hover above the ground, "says manager Alex Lifschutz. Explain economics behind these commissions, he said: "We generally work on a rights basis, both with us and the manufacturer to the initial development work and equipment in the project free of charge.
very great cheeses of the world of architecture are courted by manufacturers for their halo effect, of course. Lifschutz but warns that there could be a downside to this. Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands still not his name badge on its products, 'especially when we feel it would other designers specifying the outside!'.
While the product designers bring in their specialty, most architectural practices feel that their existing staff are able to take commissions on products. "Whether large scale such as buildings or small scale such as jewelry, architects design for the end user, said Kutay to ZHA. "Many of the same ideas and principles used in our architecture can be applied to our product design.
However, Foster + Partners is bucking that trend and is consciously building its 10 -Strong team of industrial design. His books are an office furniture system, seating, lighting and interiors of domestic and commercial aircraft, as well as custom parts for its own building practice.
Despite the potential pitfalls to design profitable and efficient products in an architectural set-up, practitioners get something else on thereof. "We are very happy moving between scale architectural projects and product design, said Natcheva
And Burwell added :." It is a pleasure to do something different; it gives you a different perception of what design is about. ' Which perhaps goes to show that even in difficult architects pushed or hardliners, it is not all about money.
In Milan in 2014 Doriana and Massimiliano Fuksas
Doriana Fuksas describes his working relationship with her husband and two of their latest products just launched in Milan in April: "It is very difficult to describe the way we work and define us. Massimiliano and I are very different, but we are very appreciative in how we work.
"Right now I'm working on smaller projects because we just finished the Shenzen airport where we made exterior and interior together. We started to make products because in the early days, we found it very difficult to find a table that suited our work.
'Also in the nineties, customers started asking us the parts to put inside our buildings. So we began offering parts as well.
"It is truly a labor of love, a tribute to the building because there is no money for the interior, the building absorbs everything. But if you like the building that you do something for her.
'With industrial design, it is different and that the first started with us at the Biennale in 00 with Alessi. We have a book on the design of our product called Fuksas :. Object, which was released at the end of last year
Archivio for Venini
"Every once you start using a different material, you need to start thinking differently. We went to Venini Murano and see how they worked and the beautiful colors of the material was the starting point. We also realized they needed something very easy to do. They have teachers who can do whatever you want, but it can be very expensive: they can take two days to make a single lamp
so, part of it is cast and some is handmade. The red is from Marco Polo and Chinese lanterns.
Roy for Fiam
'Fiam is a father and his pet son who absolutely love their work and they transmit this. It's not like the architecture. With architecture, you may have a customer in front of you that knows what they do not want, but do not know what they want.
But working with people of Fiam is amazing. It's like it was with Giorgio Armani - it becomes a friendship and fun. We made a few pieces including a glass table that has a magic mirror inside - you have to see for yourself "
In Milan in 2014 Grimshaw Elements
in Milan, Grimshaw Architects turned the focus on unity of industrial design, with a retrospective exhibition, which also saw three new products launched in collaboration with the manufacturer Italian Poltrana Frau. And all have been displayed in elegant travel cabinets also designed by Grimshaw.
The three prototype design of the exhibition were the planetarium seats designed to the latest draft of Grimshaw, Patricia Museum and Philip Frost Science in Miami, highly configurable Spine transit seats and lobby elements -. a management table that drives manufacturing efficiency and takes its aesthetic benchmarks of "lean tailwings various aerospace craft" and "the family of insects Mantidae
The latter project were also particularly excited designers as the prototype, turned around three days ago by Poltrana Frau, had just arrived at the scene.
exposure itself is all about enhancing the degree of integration of design and architecture to Grimshaw. Head of industrial design, Casimir Zdanius said the ouput of the unit now divided fairly evenly in what he calls the product design and applied design -. As in applied architectural elements
'It began with the industrial design for architectural details for buildings such as Waterloo (International Terminal, 1993) and Paddington Station (1998 ), "he said. "He was on the form of decisions and performance, do not use more steel into a cast than was necessary."
Regarding the product design is concerned, like many architects, there was a want of complete element inside buildings. "it is about taking a little more control of your architectural environment more we can participate with designer furniture, signage and all the architectural elements, the more we feel the overall architecture of the building has a coherent identity.
he also now evolved to the point where they will look at the market to identify areas where they think there is a need for specific products, such as elements
practice founder Nicholas Grimshaw takes the germination of the design unit goes back even further. " I think you can look at Herman Miller project in Chippenham in the early eighties, when for the first time, the relative size of a nut and bolt and washer actually really started to matter and made integral part of the whole building flexibility.
"There is also the idea of industrial democracy, where the panels and the like can be swapped. With headquarters Igus (1992, Cologne), they expanded four times. It was the industrial design outside the building. While cladding systems have panels that go on and stay there, it was all about putting it in the hands of the people. They could remove it and move it. And it all starts to permeate downwards in the way you deal with inside the building as well. So it was not a sudden change for us. "
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