The inventors of Re Voluxion
Inventors of Re Voluxion, the architects Sabrina Bignami and Alessandro Capellaro, answer to our questions...
1. When and how was the collaboration between B-Arch and Re+ set up?
1. A: The collaboration was born due to a personal acquaintance with Fabia and, given the type of activity practiced, it has been almost natural to think together about the product and be involved in thinking about how to give birth to a new chapter of this journey of Re+. It is always interesting to decontextualize an object and combine the two things.
2. What was the idea behind the birth of Re Voluxion and what did you want to convey designing it?
2. A: The basic idea is innate in the same identity of Re+. It's a second life of industrial production waste products. S: The idea was born from the most interesting waste product, characterized by a strong visual identity, and immediately after, form the recognition of a strong similarity between this product and the lamps made during the '60s, the golden age for design. The goal was to redesign a lamp that was in line with Re + and had a very contemporary design and perception. The intent was to transform something already existing into something workable, but creating a new product. A: It's interesting to think that the waste product can be a resource for design: objects reach perfection with the collaboration between designers and those who produce. This is an interesting thing to connect to the concept of Re +.
3. Why you think it’s important to introduce the aspect of environmental sustainability into the objects designed by B-arch studio?
3. A: It is so important to become implied. It is not important to say that it is so but how it is so. What’s a scrap for the industry has become a resource for us, from this we have been working on the concept of imperfection and turned it into a virtue.
4. Why do you give so much importance to the sustainability and uniqueness of the design product that we purchase
4. A: Uniformity is something boring. Thinking about the fact that one day houses will all look the same. S: It’s also true though that design originates as serial production, accessible to everyone, and its beauty also stands in this. In the case of Revoluxion the beautiful aspect is that something unrepeatable comes from serial production, it has an extra content, a different appearance that makes it interesting. Actually it refers much to something already existing, it’s not unique and unrepeatable in its form but in its productive origin. You know, in the objects that have connection with the past you can often find something able to relate to everyone, that goes beyond time and space.
5. Why do you like your job?
5. A: We like our job because it’s various, one day you’re in a construction site, the day after in a hotel or on a plane, and the day after you find out how to produce a system that looks easy but actually is full of intricacy. S: Furthermore you’re always around people, the ones that work with you, the ones you work for, it’s a job made of relationships. When people come to us they are always happy. Our client is always there with us: a project improves with the contribution of the person in front of you. A client puts 50% of the passion in a project.
6. Since you've started, do you believe the designers’ world has changed?
6. S: For what concerns our personal experience yes, it has changed in better, our world has opened. And we say this even though we're living in a devastating period for our job: who does this job thinks that the only way to have an opportunity is leaving Italy, but the way we interact and communicate is essential. A: When we studied in the 80s it was a terrible period for architecture and capable architects weren’t able to stand out, this industry was difficult, enclosed, repetitive, the subject studied was deigned architecture, almost a denial of the concept of design itself. Nowadays it’s not easy but there are many young architects that make amazing projects, the world has opened, experience abroad is necessary, people travel, it’s important to open your visual field in order to grow up. From there on it’s difficult.
7. What suggestion would you feel giving to young people who want to undertake the designer career?
7. S:For what concerns the studies it is a profession that has a high risk of superficiality, there are many beautiful subjects but if you are not disciplined and if you don’t examine in depth it has the higher risk of superficiality. Most of our exams are team works, it’s a life based on teams and each one of us has a specific role in this process. It’s important that university teaches you how to work in groups, we often come across very low competence. My personal experience taught me that if you want to open a study, you need to have an entrepreneurial inclination that you have to preserve and a predisposition to work in team that not everybody has. A: Generally speaking the basis are curiosity, experience, awareness and humility. Four qualities that one should try to create. Curiosity means going around the world, looking outside of your own garden, today the limits are wider. Experience means know-how, not presuming that an artistic mind is enough. Awareness means breaking with dreams, knowing what we want and always being spot-on. Humility means not presuming to be who we are not. Not being stuck up. Our studio originated on the field, working on domestic space, on construction sites, on people, and this is what made us somehow humble, not wanting to teach how the city of tomorrow should be but trying to understand how today’s house is.
