Interview by Robert Thiemann – FRAME Mag
-You are also one of the founders of Proto Design, intended as launching platform for Portuguese design, if I remember well. Why did Proto stop?
Proto stopped because we realized our main goal was to do design and not to do business… We were tired of selling lamps…
Anyhow we had lots of fun editing and presenting those projects of “one material, one technology, many designers”…We were partying all the time…
-What is your professional occupation these days?
I’m a full time designer (teaching also), collaborating mostly with Portuguese companies.
In Portugal there are highly skilled producers and they are starting to understand the importance of a well designed product and an effective communication strategy. So I’m working on products, interiors, events and branding.
-Your EXD09 presentation is called Workstation. Why this name?
Workstation is the word I found to define the period and the working environment I lived doing this project.
It is a kind of virtual working system involving people, technology, concepts and experiments, with one objective, for a certain period of time.
It becomes a two ways process where the designer is the trigger of a dynamic process interacting with experts, their knowledge and technology in a dialectic way.
-You show 19 (?) designs for a chair. Are these designs all new? If so, you surely must have loads of energy to come up with so many designs. Or lots of time?
It happens with designers as it happens with artists (maybe the only thing we have in common) – the natural addiction for creative action!
For me it is a need to do experiments and to try materials. It is in my nature and for that I don’t need so much energy; I just let me go into the action. But most of all I get excited with results and can’t stop doing it.
Also because of the above referred “workstation”, when the developing network is fine the results are quick and effective. So it doesn’t take so much time (8 months)
Only one chair is not new, (developed for Tavares restaurant in 2008), and they were more than 19 but I had to select and some were hidden at the exhibition basement and some never went out of the assembling workshop.
-Why only chair designs? And what are you researching with these new designs?
The researching point was to explore the possibilities of mixing traditional assembling methods with digital production process around the subject – Chair.
This is not new but it became the new paradigm of the design process where digital production allows designers to be more independent from the industrial system. This paradigm have give designers flexibility and freedom, opening new directions in style but many times getting them out of focus and decorative driven.
I wanted to get down to earth and use this (now) affordable production methods in a classical and rational design approach.
By exploring different chair typologies and having in mind some design principles as, lightness, structure, ergonomics and form, I’m playing with materials and developing my personal expression for such a complex design subject .
-Will any of the new designs be manufactured?
I’m working on that and so far 8 of the 19 prototypes are confirmed to be distributed by two design editors (one Portuguese and one Belgian).
The other models are going to be produced and retailed by myself for my everyday clients.
-What do you hope Workstation will bring you?
I’m doing my job…
Hopefully I will be doing some more “workstations” facing different typologies and materials.
So far it brought to me knowledge, experience and pleasure
-You are one of the founders of EXD. How did you see the event develop in 10 years time? What was your initial goal and do you think that goal has been reached?
At the beginning we wanted to start in Lisbon a platform where Portuguese Designers could show their works to the International Design community.
As a peripherical country we needed to grab attention on our design culture by organizing events with designers, producers and schools, but most of all, the objective was, to create a biennial cycle of “experimental” presentations within the national design community.
After 10 years, I am happy EXD still exists and get bigger but I am sad it doesn’t show the world the huge step Portuguese designers and companies have taken since…
-What do you think of EXD09? Who will benefit from the event?
Between 1995 and 2000 we were living a dream where young Portuguese design was linked to the rest of Europe. In different ways, Proto Design, Experimenta and AICEP promoted Portuguese Design Exhibitions around the world grabbing attention from the press and peers.
During that period, EXD was committed being a Portuguese Design Culture tool… now it’s something else!
Dear All
WORKSTATION is Marco Sousa Santos latest Design project, now on show at EXD09 Lisbon.
Presented as a parallel event at bienial Experimenta Design 2009, here we provide some images of the models on display at Sociedade Nacional De Belas Artes, R. Barata Salgueiro,36 Lisbon
Please Note:
The only purpose of this blog is to be used as a communication tool regarding the WORKSTATION project.
All images and texts displayed in this pages are private and can only be downloaded, used or printed with the author approval.
We will be pleased so supply any hi res images if needed
For any information contact – marcoss@netcabo.pt
W_Means_Wood_Plywood
W Chairs are made of Wisa Birch Plywood.
The Wisa Birch plywood is composed by thin 1,4mm veneers and due to its softness and flexibility it is perfect to develop all scale models allowing accurate experiments in form and mechanic solutions.
The development of the first models where made exclusively by a domestic cnc cutting and assembled by myself at home.
This first 3D off scale models allowed me to observe, select solutions and go further with new models and into the first prototypes.
During this step of small scale modelling I could also try mechanical resistance and flexibility since material properties where alike the real scale flat plywood panels (just thinner).
I even thought I could do the prototypes myself because of the accurate finishing of digital cutting (that was one of the experimental process I wanted to try), doing all by myself! But results show me I was mistaken.
I needed an expert on wood…
The Wood chairs on display where assembled by Mr. Castro, a fine craftsman who have been working on wood since ever… In fact those chairs could only be well assembled because knowledge and human hand experience get involved.
Even when digital tooling is highly precise, wood assembling is a key factor to resistance and stability, and it can only be done by humans…
Mr. Castro entered the project as the “guy with the glue” and closed (this step of) the project as simply “the guy”!
Along the last 3 months working with him at the wood workshop I tried to redesign the details of assembling in the search of less human intervention (not to get rid of him but) in order to get lower production costs.
Now I know I can’t live without him if I want to proceed with this “Workstation”…
Why?
There was no commission of any kind and I simply had this unexplained need to get myself into a subject (and material) in all aspects related to the development of “such a trivial” design matter as; chairs…
I didn’t feel like going into plastic or any new fantastic material where experimentation could be itself the meaning for doing it.
I did choose the common and traditional materials with which thousands of chairs have been made since the last 100 years. Maybe that was the point? By avoiding new materials and facing the old ones the challenge could be more real and fulfilling.
Well… there was also a hidden and personal reason; I wanted to develop a project where I could spend time drawing, modelling and prototyping not being worried with a dead line and allowing myself a closer approach to materials and it’s nature.
