‘We’re post-trend society’ PRODUCTS

Looking back at the FRAME Awards, what did you take away from the projects and discussions in relation to products?

YORGO LYKOURIA: We’re in a very interesting situation right now when we discuss what is ‘good design’, because there are so many tendencies and crosscurrents of influence and activity that it’s really hard to pinpoint things – and that’s probably the way it will stay. We’re in a post-trend society. Being a designer is not just about the formalized aspect of beauty, which can be shallow and meaningless. We can all make something beautiful, but design’s relevance is in engaging people and relating to their imaginations and lives. There are many ways of approaching lighting, for instance. It can be purely functional. A lot of lighting designers want fittings to be invisible in architecture so that light seems to magically appear in a space. In other cases, lighting becomes an object in and of itself, something with a presence, something you have a relationship to. Sometimes you have a real dilemma because you might have a competition entry that’s technically great, another that’s really well executed from a product-design point of view, and yet another that’s truly poetic and wonderful. When you put these three different tendencies together in a room, I find it very hard to choose a winner. All three are, in their own way.

Being in a post-trend society, what influences design if not trends?

Looking at the last five or ten years, every year has brought us a brand-new challenge and we’ve had to rethink everything. While it’s challenging, I think it’s also quite good in that it forces us to ask questions or solve problems that we might have been brushing under »

‘This is a sustainable, versatile and durable material,’ said jury member Andrés Fredes, creative director of Alldsgn. ‘It’s a great canvas with which to play in interiors.’