How is a Design Object Born? Interview with Debonademeo

When was your studio born and why did you decide to open it together?

Dario De Meo: The studio was born more than ten years ago. I am a designer, Luca is an architect, and although our professions often intersect, we look at the world of design from different points of view. This was an added value for us because working together we saw that the results were something new, innovative and more complete in every way.

Luca De Bona: It was a need for completion: where one launches the other creates, and this also became our design method. We never give each other tasks, we both start from the brief, from the request. Clients often ask us who is the technician and who is the poetic figure, and they are bewildered when we answer that ideas, whether they are poetic or hi-tech, always come from dialogue.

What are the design assumptions?
DDM: As Luca said, dialogue. The basis of design is listening, observation. We observe what is around us, we create relationships. Every time we meet a company, we are faced with people who have their background, their history, but also desires, concerns, and this always gives us new conceptual insights.

LDB: Our method involves creating a dualism between form and function. We don't like it when design is only a material or technological response, just as we don't like it when design exceeds in being artistic expression, decoration, or is too tied to the language of its maker: instead, we like it when there is a dualism, when these two things are in perfect balance with each other. On the other hand, dualism is also what there is between our idea and what happens in the hands of the user, the short-circuit between what for us is a file and what becomes a product, and what from a product becomes a cult object, an object of desires, something that transforms an environment into a home. Dualism is finally reasoning about the hic et nunc, the here and now: whatever the brief and the kind of product on which we are going to devise a proposal, we always ask ourselves what is needed today, what does society need, even at an unspoken level. And how can we create a hic et nunc by bringing together the company with its background, its know-how, the materials it uses, and the way we express ourselves.

You are consultants in the area of color for some design companies. What does it mean, what does your work consist of?

DDM: It consists of continuous research, based on observation of society and people. Creating and looking for trends means having a 360-degree view of what is happening in the world, being able to perceive the common thread between things that are even very far apart. It is a complex job, it is not a science, it is a work of sensitivity that requires understanding what the current macro trends are-for example, technology or sustainability-and turning them into briefs to develop or choose colors, materials, finishes that can trigger emotions in people.It is important to emphasize that trend research is not just about color, because color, for example, always has a texture based on where it is applied, so it is crucial to talk about three-dimensional perception of reality.

LDB: When we do color consulting to a client, the first thing we do is interview them, almost psychoanalyze them, because color follows trends, responds to market needs, but there is also a color inside each of us. We often ask the client, "If your company was a color, what color would it be?" It sounds like a childish question, but sometimes unexpected answers come out, and they themselves are surprised because maybe they are used to seeing themselves surrounded by one type of color but in the soul of the company they see another.

I ask you this too: what if Debonademeo were a color?

LDB: We would probably be the color you see on our website, a color not color. A neutral yet warm, textural hue, reminiscent of the harmony between materials.

DDM: Like Giorgio Armani's greige.

What are the trends right now, and what are the trends for the coming years?

LDB: Definitely the current trends have to do with social aspects. It is no coincidence that in an era of economic prosperity such as the 2000s, the compage of minimalism characterized not only the environments, but also the materials and colors, which were very clear. Instead, in a time of difficulty or instability, human beings need to surround themselves with colors, not necessarily strong or bright, but colors that give a sense of safety, security, and well-being. Right now the art world, from which we draw inspiration because it is independent of the demands of brands, makes us realize that we are moving toward chromatics that have to do with a soft minimalism. Cool tones are coming back, rational tones, structured tones, but also tones that give a sense of softness and warmth.

Let's come to the project you presented at Fuorisalone together with Incalmi, Ossimori. Has the project evolved from how it was initially conceived?

LDB: Ossimori is an open project: we wrote it as if it were the outline of a film, we knew that, partly because of the choice of combining different materials, which was the diktat from which we started, and also because of a question of the way of working and the people involved, something unexpected would be created. In the beginning, we would not have expected to create together with the product also an environment Ossimori - it was a circumstance related to the Salone del Mobile, to the location that was proposed to us by Design Variations - but in the end we managed to bring the viewer into the world Ossimori. At the design level, many things have changed over time, but by changing the addends the result does not change, the oxymoron is there, and it is even stronger.

DDM: It has become more Incalmi. We started from the narrative, putting together a rational design, which then became filled with the opulence that is also somewhat intrinsic to the materials, for example having used Murano glass enriched the design. Also adding the complements strengthened what at first glance could have been an almost conceptual design, beautiful but not usable, giving it a human proportion because the objects, the scale of the objects, made a product that was in danger of being museum rather than domestic.

Perhaps this served to remain consistent with your approach, converging form and function.

DDM: Yes, it had to be a real experience, we wanted people to be able to touch it, use it, it had to be not just seen but experienced.

LDB: We like the paradox that a museum design object creates a short-circuit with everyday life. It is a living object, you just have to move it around or change your point of view to notice details, appreciate its shape and interactions with light.

How did you approach the theme of color in this project?

DDM: It was very interesting to see Incalmi at work: we started with an idea, but then we realized that both glass and enamel are living materials, they are materials that once put in the kiln can completely change color depending on the temperature of the kiln, the time they are in the kiln. We did a lot of testing to get the perfect balance of chromatics. It was not a desk choice, it was a laboratory choice.

LDB: An apricot color, which will be one of the trendy colors in the next few years, came out, not even to my knowledge.

What evolutions do you imagine for this project?

LDB: Ossimori is not finished. The collection seen at the fair will be able to expand into different forms - in the project we had also included mirrors and other furnishings made in the same way. Plus at this point we've brought Murano glass into play: it will be fun to see what glass allows us to do, and we'll see how traditionally coded colors change when combined with these sheets. If pink can become an apricot, we'll see what happens with blue and green. The project has five or six other themes that will be developed from now on at the complement level, objects that play with perception, with perspective, and with contrast between materials, which may not even be a contrast between different materials but a single-material contrast though that plays with different chemical reactions in the same material.