For the 4th episode of our weekly talk with Archiproducts Design Awards jury members we spoke with Patrick Schumacher, head of Zaha Hadid Architects, Dagmar Štepánová, founder of Czech studio Formafatal, and architect Davide Macullo.
We questioned them about their personal point of view of project culture and their expectations of this year’s nominees.
Patrik Schumacher:“I am looking forward to see designs that recognize and exploit new potentials of our time.”
Patrik Schumacher is head of Zaha Hadid Architects and successor of founder Zaha Hadid, who passed in 2016. He joined the team in 1988 and has played an important role in the development of Zaha Hadid Architects, which today is widely recognized as one of the most influential ‘brands’ in international architecture and design.
What are you looking forward to finding in our entries and which features are you going to reward?
“We are living in exciting AI empowered times with new materials, design methodologies and manufacturing processes. The products themselves become increasingly intelligent too and mutate from mere commodities to responsive services. I am looking forward to designs that recognize and exploit these new potentials of our times.”
Dagmar Štepánová: “The relation between aesthetic quality, functionality and proportions is essential.”
Dagmar Štepánová is founder of Czech studio Formafatal, a team of eight professionals, architects, scenographers and designers, focused on sustainability, committed to the preservation of historical heritage and with a particular attention to detail.
What are you looking forward to finding in our entries and which features are you going to reward?
“New but also traditional approaches, and the designer’s results – products, which I will be happy to use in our architectural and interior designs. I always imagine what impact a certain object will have on me in 10 years or more, and I wonder if I will still like it after years. In general, I like things that outlive us and don’t built on current (constantly changing) trends. I consider the connection of aesthetic quality with functionality and proportions, as well as combinations of materials, to be essential. I perceive the product positively if it is based on a clear and convincing concept. This does not mean, however, that its aesthetic concept has to be flashy, or pompous. Quite the contrary. I appreciate timeless design, which – as they say – does not age. I prefer craftsmanship over new technologies.”
In which direction should contemporary product Design go and how should it evolve to answer people’s needs?
“First and foremost towards sustainability. It can be environmentally friendly materials and technologies. Functionality, quality and timeless aesthetics – ageless design – are aspects that are very much in line with this concept.”
Davide Macull “The designer’s ultimate goal is to put man at ease in his environment; the artefactual, the virtual and the natural.”
David Macullo worked for 20 years with Mario Botta before founding his own architecture firm David Macullo Architects in Lugano, Switzerland. Ethical principals of the studio are based on a series of ‘cross experiences’ and promote an open exchange with architects and collaborators from various cultural backgrounds and different professional fields. Their contributions are considered crucial for stimulating dialogue between the particularities of a project and its universal context.
What are you looking forward to finding in our entries and which features are you going to reward?
“Design and architecture are the outermost shells of our body that relate to our senses. We touch, feel and closely confront products with our senses and our bodies. A critical attitude, free of prejudices, but rich in cultural values, should provide objects and spaces designed for the senses. They should relate us to our history and future, and show us a path we can follow. What we design should be intended to last forever. It should bear witness to the best of ourselves and our possibilities, nourish love among people and relate man to nature. Our creative production, every line we draw and that will later become space or object, should remind us of our most wonderful inner world. It should encompass the past, the present and the future. To be effective, a product should be designed for taking care of the ecology in the broadest sense, and the human ecology.”
Which role do you think a Design Award should have nowadays?
“Design awards are excellent instruments to spread a message of genuine growth of the creative community. We need awards, not to deliver prizes but to share good questions and provide answers that can help man to relate to this rapidly changing world.”
In which direction should contemporary product Design go and how should it evolve to answer people’s needs?
“The ultimate goal of the designer is to put man at ease in his environment; the built, the virtual and the natural.”