Whether it’s a vase, glass collection, ceramic tile, luminaire, car tyre, sofa or wash basin – her creations are quite simply beautiful – and sensuous. And she has the looks to match. In the course of the interview, however, multi-award winning product and interior designer Defne Koz turns out to be not just charming and sensitive but tough and uncompromising as well – especially when it comes to quality issues in design. She thinks today’s design scene is lacking in diligent research, serious design, passion and courageous visions for the future. Following her participation in this year’s Trendboard Workshop for the imm cologne, she joined us in a café on the banks of the Rhine for an extensive interview about trends and the future of interior design, the power of design traditions and the hierarchy of visions.
The design philosophy of the Turkish-born product designer who currently lives in the USA was shaped by none other than Ettore Sottsass – it was in his studio that she completed her training. With branch studios in Milan, Istanbul and her new home town of Chicago, she is making her quiet but enduring mark on a wide range of sectors, from jewellery design all the way to architectural projects. She designs furniture for Mobileffe, Liv’it and MPD, luminaires for Foscarini and Leucos, decorative objects, household goods and accessories for Alessi, Egizia, Aski, Cappellini, Guzzini, WMF or Authentics, impressive tile collections for VitrA and bathroom items for Rapsel-Nito and Merato.
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Harald Gründl (EOOS), member of the imm cologne Trendboard. (Foto: Koelnmesse)
Born in 1967 in Vienna, Austria, Harald Gründl studied industrial design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and holds a PhD in philosophy. In 1995 he set up the design agency EOOS together with Martin Bergmann and Gernot Bohmann. EOOS has become a leading studio for furniture design, brand spaces and design research with clients including Alessi, Armani, Bulthaup, Dedon, Duravit, Matteo Grassi, Walter Knoll and Zumtobel.
Harald Gründl, member of the imm cologne Trendboard, has chaired the Institute of Design Research Vienna since 2008 and is a partner at EOOS design, where he heads the studio‘s research activities.
What was the most interesting thing about the imm cologne Trendboard Workshop for you?
I found it very interesting to see that there are a lot of similarities in the way the various members of the Trendboard perceive the design sector, and that we’d all noticed similar phenomena. Meeting new people is always the most interesting thing!
The Trend Book shows what’s happening in design right now and what motivates the people who make use of this design offering. In your opinion, where are the strongest influences on product and interior design coming from?
As far as I’m concerned, the sustainability debate is the most important influence on design right now. How can we react to this development intelligently, and how does that affect the trends of the future? We discussed this aspect in relation to all four Interior Trends and were able to identify the different ways it’s manifesting itself.
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Patricia Urquiola, member of the imm cologne Trend Board. (photo: Koelnmesse)
Patricia Urquiola is a member of the imm cologne Trend Board and was born in Oviedo, Spain and now lives and works in Milan. She attended the faculty of architecture at Madrid Polytechnic and Milan Polytechnic, from which she graduated in 1989 having completed her thesis with Achille Castiglioni.
In 2001 she opened her own studio, working on product design, architecture, installations and concept creation. In 2006 Koelnmesse invited Patricia Urquiola to build one of the ideal houses for imm cologne. Urquiola‘s clients include, among others, Agape, Alessi, Artelano, Axor, B&B Italia, Bisazza, BMW, Bosa, De Padova, Driade, Salvatore Ferragamo, Flos, Foscarini, Kartell, Kvadrat, MDF Italia, Molteni, Moroso and Panasonic.
During the imm cologne’s Trendboard workshop, you didn’t just name four of the most influential tendencies in interior design right now, you discussed other trends in the design scene as well. How much of it do you think is really important?
I think there is a new trend regarding the idea of what is innovative. Innovation was always primarily connected with the idea of industrial progress, i.e. with a more traditional idea. More and more, however, the term innovation is coming to be associated with values like sustainability and with what people really see as innovative – for instance if something is surprisingly intelligent or opens up new usage possibilities. People are paying more attention to how something is done and why it is done. More importance is being attached to the concept.
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Martin Leuthold, member of the imm cologne Trend Board. (photo: Koelnmesse)
Martin Leuthold was born in 1952 in Hegi-Winden, Switzerland. He completed an apprenticeship as an embroidery designer in his youth. Since 1973, he has been employed as a textile designer at Jakob Schlaepfer in St. Gallen (Switzerland), a company that makes innovative textiles for the fashion industry and interior decoration.
Martin Leuthold has held a management role at Jakob Schlaepfer since 1989 and, as Art Director, heads the creative division. In this function, he was and is involved in projects including the development of numerous new textile design processes and the laser and inkjet processes for printing on textiles.
What was the most interesting about the imm cologne Trendboard Workshop for you?
The various presentations by the different personalities who got together for the workshop were very interesting in themselves. And it was very rewarding to hear the various opinions and interpretations of the new trends. Another important aspect of this meeting was that we all want to safeguard our future.
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Defne Koz, member of the imm cologne 2011 trendboard. (photo: Koelnmesse)
What was the most interesting thing about the imm cologne Trendboard Workshop for you?
It’s always interesting – and important – to reflect on what we do and share our ideas about design. I like the fact that the Trendboard initiative is able to structure our collective thoughts into something that could be useful and helpful to other designers.
The Trend Book shows what’s happening in design right now and what motivates the people who make use of this design offering. In your opinion, where are the strongest influences on product and interior design coming from?
For a designer, there are always multiple influences. Personally I’m curious about art and architecture, but I always centre my inspiration around understanding people, how they live, how their behaviour is changing. That’s the root of new aesthetics.
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Israeli designer Arik Levy is one of the most sought-after masters of his trade, whereas the sphere of his activities, which every now and then even cross the boundary to art, seems nearly unlimited. Kristina Raderschad visited the successful designer in the new studio in Paris he recently moved in and gained insights into his working methods.
Opening the heavy iron door to Ldesign’s new studio in an ancient industrial building amidst the hip Parisian quarter Bellville, which Levy moved in together with his business partner Pippo Lionni, one is greeted by the concentrated atmosphere of a design factory. Here, a team of currently 20 creative professionals is working on about 200 projects – in an all-white loft-like room with a large ribbon glazing pointing to the street, which several low shelves subdivide into different departments. A meeting is taking place at the back of the office, a project team is discussing ongoing tasks at the conference table, telephones are ringing, conversations and a big hustle and bustle are filling the room. In one niche material samples, models, prototypes and custom-built products accumulate. Next to this spot one of the Fractal Cloud lamps is being assembled: Step by step the small, delicate neon tubes are being wired and stuck together to form a Gesamtkunstwerk.
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The Trendboard has been talking about the end of design icons. What does that mean for interior design?
Yes, that’s something we discussed, but I don’t think it’s as absolute as that. In my opinion, there will always be iconic design. Because whether or not an object has cult character depends on the design itself and not on whether it’s marketed using that particular label. Many things are designed without a single thought being given to their symbolism, but they manage to capture consumers’ imagination at a certain moment in time all the same, so they come to represent a certain zeitgeist. What has really changed is people’s need to fill their homes with designer items as if they were toy chests. That attitude has gone slightly out of fashion.
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Interior designer Kirsten Antje Hoppert and product designer Steffen Kroll have been in business as Studio Vertijet since 1998. Both studied at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle. They define the spectrum of their work as ranging from dessert spoons all the way to architecture.
It was their shared ideals and their enthusiasm for “beautiful things with an equally high functional value” that brought them together in the present constellation. “If our products manage to sensitise people, we would have achieved one of our ideals …” they say. This conviction and passion serve as the starting point for their ideas. “Dreaming” and “fanciful ideas of life” are an important part of the product development process – a method they like to describe as “planned intuition”.
According to the duo‘s philosophy, mankind is heading for the ground again – but this time with a few layers of padding between us and the carpet. Those in search of relaxation, say Kirsten Antje Hoppert and Steffen Kroll, cannot expect a solution to their problems either from comfortable office chairs or classic sofas – the fundamental ergonomics of the sitting positions are the same.
We stand up from sitting down, only to go and sit down again. In an attempt to get us moving, Cor‘s “Lava” model therefore introduces new ergonomics for recumbent positions – the first sofa on the planet not primarily intended for sitting on. Kirsten Antje Hoppert and Steffen Kroll live and work together in Halle/Saale, Germany.
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Konstantin Grcic (*1965) trained as a cabinetmaker at the John Makepeace School for Craftsmen in Dorset (1985 to 1987) before studying furniture design at the Royal College of Art in London.
After a year as an assistant to Jasper Morrison, he founded his own firm in Munich in 1991: “Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design”. The 90s saw the start of his success with laundry baskets and other plastic items for Authentics; then came style icons such as the Mayday lamp for Flos (1999), the swaying shelving unit Es for Nils Holger Moormann (1999), the Chaos armchair for ClassiCon (2001) and the Osorom seating element for Moroso (2002). The chair_ONE die-cast aluminium chair with a conical concrete foot (Magis, 2004) was actually intended for public spaces but went on to sell in its thousands as a sculptural lattice structure with seating function for the private loft. It was followed by the Miura bar stool (Plank, 2005).
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Stefan Heiliger, born in Berlin in 1941, studied at Ulm School of Design and under Wilhelm Wagenfeld in Stuttgart. From 1964 to 1977, he worked for Mercedes-Benz as a designer. One of the most important designs of this period was the 207 D for Mercedes, a van that was produced by the millions.
In a 2007 retrospective of the designer‘s work, Frankfurt Museum of Applied Art showcased his Relax furniture from the time after his years as a car designer. As a professor at Ulm School of Design and owner of a design studio, Stefan Heiliger specialised in furniture design. He has received numerous awards for his chair, armchair and sofa designs for manufacturers like Bonaldo, WK Möbel or Ruf Betten.
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Whether it’s a vase, glass collection, ceramic tile, luminaire, car tyre, sofa or wash basin – her creations are quite simply beautiful – and sensuous. And she has the looks to match. In the course of the interview, however, multi-award winning product and interior designer Defne Koz turns out to be not just charming and sensitive but tough and uncompromising as well – especially when it comes to quality issues in design. She thinks today’s design scene is lacking in diligent research, serious design, passion and courageous visions for the future. Following her participation in this year’s Trendboard Workshop for the imm cologne, she joined us in a café on the banks of the Rhine for an extensive interview about trends and the future of interior design, the power of design traditions and the hierarchy of visions.
