“DESIGN IS NOT FASHION; IT IS NOT TO DO WITH TRENDS. DESIGN IS ABOUT CREATIVITY, HONESTY, ECOLOGY, TECHNOLOGY AND ALSO SUBVERSION.”
He has made a personal fortune through product design, but now he believes it is time to recalibrate the design compass. He asks: “Are we here to design more product or to be very creative in a different way of conserving energy? Today, we need more thinking, not more chairs. The most important thing is to think about what is really important — what is the goal. Is it to have a new sports car? I have my doubts. Is the goal to make my wife happy? I am sure, yes. For twenty years, I have pursued democratic design, in a bid to raise quality and bring the price of that quality down. Now I intend to concentrate less and less on products and more and more on being a producer of action.”
His latest design challenge revolves around eco-architecture — high-tech houses at very low prices that appeal to his democratic sensibilities. “There is a new priority today that revolves around ecology and society,” he explains. “We have new territories to explore, and we have to do that, even if it means saying goodbye to our easy lives. We are coming to the end of this consuming society. When you lose a model of society that has existed for half a century, you have to think how to create the next one — not repeat what has gone before.”