Marco Acerbis' interview

Marco Acerbis speaking

1. What does it mean to be an architect/designer in 2013?

It means making a very careful analysis of exactly what we mean by design and what its purpose is in a world packed with continual novelties that often make one thing obsolete just to be able to produce something else, no less useful or attractive but certainly no better. You have to try to take the long view, beyond fashions and beyond the world enamoured of novelty for novelty’s sake, and attempt to create products that will last over time because they respond better and better, over the years, to a constantly changing reality.

2. What do you think is the vital ingredient for “Good Design" and why?

I think that today there is no point in talking about design unless you are capable of combining form and function to perfection. Nowadays, the market and consumers are more selective and better informed than ever before, and they expect a great deal from an object. We are perhaps all a little intoxicated by the world of electronics, which is able to produce incredible objects, tiny but with lots of functions, and also often ensures an impressive sales and after-sales service.

3. You recently won the Good Design Award with the Wave tap. Where did you get the idea, the inspiration?

The contrast and dialogue between the straight, severe lines of the back of the tap and the rounded, gentle lines of the front create a harmony that both looks and feels good. In this case, the form is inspired by the fluidity of water and the tap’s very dynamic function. As in all my designs, the aim is to create timeless objects, untouched by fashion.

4. What about the Runner table for Citterio and the video?

A table, a cello and a number of everyday objects. This is the basis for “Runner”, a video that recounts the meeting between music and design, a project that looks for new ways of telling people about design through contemporary sounds and images (www.runnertable.com). Story-telling has always been the soul of Italian design; products are actors performing on the imaginary stages of their designers, or the real stages of their users. Our lifestyles are to an ever-increasing extent completed by the objects we use every day. We are used to interacting with communication tools and living within spaces that are smaller and smaller in dimensional terms. The Runner_Table is a response to this lifestyle; it allows elegant use to be made of the space underneath the table-top.  Its design is radical but it is still a straightforward, simple, effective object. An ON/OFF object, responding to the different times of our days.