Reorganising lifestyles involves design as well: new designs, solutions and spaces. What solutions need to be reconfigured?

My designs for the office sector have often been inspired by the comfort of the home. I’ve always thought the home is more interesting than the office, especially since we work paperless using light technologies.

Depending on what work you do, at home you can choose where to sit - drawing at a desk or lying on the sofa reading. By locking yourself in your bedroom or setting up in the living room, you give clear indications about needing privacy or wanting to share. In our domestic set-up, we’ve sort of anticipated our organisation by office functions. Comfort and well-being have also always been important in the home. But, in reality, we spend the better part of our lives at the office, the part we’re awake for.  That's why I’ve always thought the office should be a place of beauty, where people feel good and feel at home. I try to design spaces that are welcoming and open, where people discover the pleasure of being together but also respect the desire for intimacy and reflection. I’m interested in an aesthetic that’s closer to feeling than appearing.

The world of design is facing a new normal...

I think it’s a non-normal normal. I’ve always thought the home could be a model for the office, but I never thought working at home would be the end point. Working at home is not interesting. It’s convenient and it’s useful in certain situations, at certain times. But particularly in big cities, where houses are often smaller for economic reasons, it’s not suitable for the different activities of people of different ages and with different needs.

Sharing spaces isn’t simple, especially because of privacy. We don’t know yet how to handle the 'side effects' of the technologies we use, like privacy in presentations. A trivial example: if the person you're calling doesn’t use a headset and you’re dealing with a confidential issue, you may not know how many people are present on their side and are actually listening to you. 

On the bright side, we’ve realised it’s possible to work from home and a lot, and that it can be convenient to do part of your job remotely so you can spend more time on family and hobbies, thus improving the quality of our individual lives.

I believe there’ll be more office-remote work integration in the future. Although, we’ll gladly return to the office to share and relive the beauty of chance encounters and idea exchanges: the raw material of our work as designers.

How has your professional work been this past year?

During the pandemic, work in the furniture sector was slowed down somewhat by the lack of trade fairs and because some collections due to be released were postponed.

I worked a lot on my art direction for IOC Project Partners, the independent division of LEMA, and on new products for several companies in the furniture sector. On top of these, there's another project I’m very excited about and hope to do justice.  I’ve worked a lot on the Smeg Small Appliances collection with Matteo Bazzicalupo.

The small household appliance boom over the last year is a trend that’s set to continue: how is object use and design evolving?

Small appliance sales literally exploded during the pandemic. Not being able to go to restaurants, people spent more on small appliances to simplify their home life. The project began in 2014 with overwhelming success. Even we never saw it coming. Now it accounts for a very large portion of the entire company's turnover.

Is this project a sign of the times?

I've never really seen it as fifties or retro. When the owners asked us to interpret the Fab refrigerator, we didn’t find it easy: we were coming from working with very innovative products. So we tried interpreting it in the most contemporary way possible. Just like in the fashion industry, it’s a mix of nostalgia and contemporary.

Compared to Fab, we smoothed out the shapes and made the lines gentler. While Fab is made from straight and curved lines, the lines of the Small Appliances are based on the superellipse’s continuous geometry, which is extremely balanced, originating from on the work of scientist Piet Hein.

By giving the products a distinctive look, we almost wanted to create little characters that conveyed sweetness and friendliness more than power.

We wanted items that would be kept on the countertop at all times. And it went really well: the collection is still breaking records with a level of success that’s left us sort of stunned.

What makes a product iconic?

Understanding how to create an icon isn't easy. I think designing an icon is a ‘happening’. It's a convergence where the designer only has a share of the responsibility. It happens when you design the right thing for the right company, and when that company believes in it and invests in its development, marketing and distribution.  It's a team game and the team is crucial for success. As a designer, you have to put 100% of yourself into achieving your goal. Design is an adventure and there are many paths you can take.  I'm always trying to find that path that will lead me to an object that will be with me for life. One that, even though it has personality, it's not a ‘wow’ object that you’ll get bored of after a few years. I prefer tiptoeing around, leaving an object that doesn’t scream but will last. That’s always been something important to me.