Damn - Intervista a Daniele Lago

DAMN° magazine # 34 DANIELE LAGO

Welcome to Lago Land Open door policy In the quiet municipality of Villa del Conte, in the Padua province of Italy and only 40 kilometres from Venice, nestles Lago Arredamenti, a furniture design company in family hands. DAMN° spoke to the man on top, Daniele Lago, to learn more about his rather unusual, particularly innovative approach to business, one that has clearly proven to work. The secret is out, and it has everything to do with design.

text BEATRICE FELIZ images © LAGO

Daniele Lago was only 33 when he took over his family company in 2006. A self-described good-fornothing at school, he could have been a scary horse to bet on. But he was no ignoramus. Quite the opposite - his hatred for “official, notions-based learning methodologies” was inversely proportional to his passion for open creativity and for the type of culture that “you do not apprehend from books but through looking around and talking to interesting people”.

When he entered the family business he was driven not so much by experience but by a belief stemming from the heart: the design industry was a little too stuck-up to thrive in today’s world and it needed a little shake.

Six years later, Lago Arredamenti advanced from a turnover of five million Euros to thirty million: despite the economic crisis (that since 2008 has particularly affected the companies in the Lago price range, the middle one). And this, despite the fact that Lago’s market is still mainly Italy (“for this reason we can foresee growth by merely focusing more internationally”, says Daniele), a country whose consumption is very much down, due to the economic uncertainty.

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DAMN°: What’s your secret, Daniele?

Daniele Lago: I brought design into the company. Obviously I do not solely mean product design, but the diffusion of a design-related culture within all company processes, from conception to distribution. I believe in openness rather than closed-doors, whatever the economical, social or political situation: positive surprises can stem from anyone and from everywhere, so at Lago we insist on giving everyone the opportunity to be creative, from the administrative staff to the carpenters, from the receptionist to the head of production. Not only does it work, it also keeps people happy.

Daniele Lago, Art director of the company. In 15 years he has designed nearly all the products in the catalogue. His work aims to solve everyday needs with simplicity. The key idea behind the products is the use of colour and modularity, allowing for high levels of customisation. (facing page, top) The opening event at LAGO Appartamento, Turin. (facing page, bottom)

DAMN°: Your way of communicating is certainly extremely innovative. A while back you launched the Appartamento concept: you rent out actual living spaces (furnished with Lago products) to 'tenants' who you recruit through the web. They then live in them and open up their 'home' for social and cultural events. Why did you do that?

DL: That’s the sort of innovation I was referring to earlier, that it is not just about products. Appartamento is a new distribution model, and a totally different one from showrooms or stores. We have those too, obvi-

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DAMN° magazine # 34 DANIELE LAGO

Huggy by Brit Leissler / LAGOSTUDIO, 2008 A mattress formed into a curved shape and fastened onto a wooden cylindrical base. The top section of the base clenches the lower part of the mattress, keeping the two elements united and thereby creating a seat with a soft back and arms. In removing the mattress element from the base, it automatically unrolls to become a comfortable bed for guests. The base can then be flipped over for use as a nightstand.

Facing page: Joynt Collection by Harry Owen / LAGOSTUDIO, 2011 (middle left) The Joynt chair and stools are contemporary and versatile jointed furniture elements. The rubber joint that is integrated into the wooden structure facilitates movement of the body. The stool leg enables a slight rocking motion and the chair back can be bent to offer back support and an overall sense of comfort.

Letto Wildwood by Daniele Lago, 2012 (middle) A bed that combines the transparency of glass with the warmth of wood. The oak headboard is embellished with a personalised band of fabric and can be customised with bands of glass on either side. Fabric-dressed accessories, which can serve as side tables and containers for objects, can be attached anywhere on the headboard. The legs come in extra-clear glass. The platform element is made of HPL. Comfort Table by Daniele Lago, 2012 (bottom right) A very thin 2mm sheet rests on four solid legs and practically shapes itself under the weight of one’s hands and forearms. A pleasant surprise for those who lean on it. The legs are covered in wood, while the lacquered top is made of polycarbonate.

ously, but in Appartamento, people can see “design in action”: they enter an actual living space, which most of the time is messy and chaotic, with dirty plates piled up in the kitchen sink. It’s refreshing (and certainly not intimidating in the slightest); it’s the opposite of an antiseptic showroom, it’s about life rather than stillness, about reality rather than fiction. We started in Milan but we later opened in many other cities in Italy – Turin, Venice, Bologna, Bergamo, Riccione… and in Spain, in Barcelona. We like the concept and it works.

In what way? Surely people do not come to the Appartamento to buy the furniture but, rather, to enjoy the cultural events that your tenants organise…

and otherwise) five times per year, for two weeks. Basically, during those periods we give free rein to creativity and brainstorm about “what things could be if…” Lots of people ask me how many products actually came into being using this method: many. But our purpose is to produce innovation, to give ourselves time to think and to confront ourselves with the young generation, in order to eventually bring valuable human capital into the business. I believe that a nice company is one that motivates its staff by challenging them intellectually, by giving everyone the chance to express him or herself.

The creative workshops are open to all, and the enthusiasm can be easily felt.

But that’s great, that’s what we want. I am not fooling you; we are not here to set up a charity. The task of an entrepreneur is to make his company earn money. But you can do this in many ways and the Appartamento is our way to position our brand for our audience. We do not do it by shouting the names of grand designers or flaunting logos, but by being present in the territory and merging culture with design. All companies want to establish a dialogue with their public: this is ours. And you would be surprised how much it actually works, also commercially: the tenant is responsible for promoting the products and selling them. He just does it in an easygoing, soft-selling sort of way. For me, Lago is 50% about profit and 50% about a widespread creativity-fuelled culture, which is, in my opinion, what will save us. Especially in times like these.

DAMN°: Very few people think of design as a discipline that goes beyond product development. In which way can this discipline play a key role in the evolution?

DL: Design is an extraordinary discipline and it should encompass all domains. If it is pursued with intelligence, it is a natural conveyor of culture. Using it in all processes - marketing, communications, production - can truly bring about amazing changes in a company.

Others - people who are certainly cleverer than I am call it “design thinking”. I don't know what to call it, but what I am sure about is the fact that it has to put creation, rather than the creator, at its centre!

DAMN°: What about product development? How do you pursue innovation?

DL: We have created Lago Studio, which is basically our R&D department. It’s located in a lovely place, in Villa del Conte near Padua: a beautiful country home 3 km from the factory. It is an odd R&D centre, in a way, because it's not only staffed with our own people; instead, it opens its doors to external designers (Italian

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DAMN°: What do you reckon Italy should do with regard to all this?

DL: Italy has an incredible heritage in terms of culture, intelligence and the like. We certainly had to go through a rather gloomy period - culturally speaking - yet despite this there are still many people with amazing ideas and skills: you cannot delete such a heritage (which is not twenty, but hundreds of years old) in just a few decades. I can see this extra-ordinariness in young people - who are often poorly treated, looked down upon, and considered a lost generation with no

Interior views of LAGO Appartamento (top all images) LAGO Appartamento, Milan The sound designer Painè Cuadrelli performing at LAGO Appartamento during the Salone del Mobile. (above) Interior view of LAGO Appartamento, Bergamo (bottom left)

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DAMN° magazine # 34 DANIELE LAGO

7 th INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF DESIGN

DESIGN P RADE °7 PA Interior views of LAGO Appartamento, Milan, during the Salone del Mobile (above and middle right)

future. By talking to them I often have the feeling that they have already figured it all out, that they are not frightened like we are. The fact that the world needs to change is for them so obvious, and they are ready for it.

They do not search for certainties but for change. The fuel, basically, is there. And this may sound banal, but it would be very helpful if politics could somehow make use of this... Having said all that, though, I also want to underline how useless all these self-celebrations of 'made in Italy' are: they do not help. What we need to do is to reinvent ourselves and to do it by inclusion, by welcoming the rest of the world, by relaunching the idea of Italianism and exporting it all over the world, like Slow Food did.

DL: I would be a liar if I said yes; the truth is, I don’t know. But I believe in embedding creativity in all we do, from administration to product development. I believe in it as the fuel for the company, so I follow this path rather than one that is filled with statistics and numbers. The only certainty I have is that since we started to design processes and the way we do business, as well as the products, the company has grown - and in this case it can readily be supported by figures.

And I also know that all over the world there is more and more awareness of these issues, a growing interest in how things are done rather than simply about what they do and how much they cost. #

DAMN°: You often talk about culture and entrepreneurship, and about the necessity to move them closer together. Why should companies do this, and how could they achieve it?

DL: I feel I am the grandson of capitalism. I have been very lucky; my primary needs were satisfied without my having to do anything. So I always felt it was my duty to enhance the business model in which I was operating. For this I owe a lot to the fact that I introduced design - meant as creative thinking rather than only product development - into the company. Economics are a reflection of actions, projects, and choices: neverever think it's the other way round!

DAMN°: Do you reckon that the average consumer knows what’s behind a Lago product in terms of company culture? And that this awareness forms part of the purchase decision?

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EXHIBITIONS UNTIL SEPTEMBER 30 th

Collection Grillage, François Azambourg, Cinna — Photo : Jean-Pierre Lemoine

Interior view of LAGO Appartamento, Bergamo (top left)

FESTIVAL JUNE 29 th — JULY 1 rst 2012 CONTEST EXHIBITIONS ENCOUNTERS DESIGN MARKET

VILLA NOAILLES COMMUNAUTÉ D'AGGLOMÉRATION TOULON PROVENCE MÉDITERRANÉE

www.villanoailles-hyeres.com

www.lago.it

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