Design Principles Pod
Architecture. A hot topic, a buzz word, a realm for the rich and famous, or the thing that your step uncle does? We will be unpacking the good, the bad and the downright reality of the architectural and construction industry. With insights from industry professionals and personal anecdotes from our three hosts Ben, Gerard and Sam, you will be given a look behind the closed pages of those fancy looking moleskins. Tune in and redline out.
Design Principles Pod
Where Craft Meets Design: Exploring Material Understanding with Raimana Jones
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The conversation with Raimana Jones from Atelier Jones Design delves deep into the heart of what makes good design truly exceptional—craftsmanship. Drawing inspiration from architectural legends like Alvar Aalto and Walter Gropius, we explore how the most revered designers extended their vision beyond buildings to encompass furniture, lighting, and complete environments.
Raimana shares his journey through fabrication and making, revealing the powerful feedback loop between crafting with your hands and designing with your mind. We unpack how this tactile understanding shapes thoughtful design decisions that simply can't emerge from digital processes alone. The discussion turns to a concerning trend—the gradual disappearance of workshop culture from design education, as hands-on making gives way to digital tools and 3D printing.
What truly elevates this conversation is our exploration of material understanding as the essence of craftsmanship. Just as Tadao Ando mastered concrete through deep connection with the material, Romana's elegant steel kitchens showcase how intimate knowledge transforms ordinary materials into extraordinary designs. While budget realities often dictate the level of craft possible in projects, we discover inventive approaches to maintaining craftsmanship even with constraints.
Whether you're a practicing designer, architecture enthusiast, or someone who appreciates the beauty of well-crafted spaces, this episode offers a compelling reminder of why material engagement matters. As James Dyson wisely noted, "The visceral experience of making things by hand is a wise teacher." Join us for an inspiring discussion about rediscovering play, embracing failure, and cultivating a deeper connection with the materials that shape our world.
Key Episode Links:
- https://www.atelierjonesdesign.co.nz/pages/about-us
Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction to Craft in Design
5:00 - Exploring Cross-Media Design Processes
11:15 - Workshop Culture and Material Play
20:25 - The Design Process: Sketching to Making
27:00 - Understanding Materials Deeply
33:48 - Budget Constraints and Craft Quality
41:47 - Craftsmanship in Architecture
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Introduction to Craft in Design
Speaker 1This week's episode is brought to you by Paradog. Try their Albi and limited release. Fresh up beers this month for the tastiest drops straight off the vine.
Speaker 2Nice. Welcome back to the Design Principles podcast. Today's episode we're chatting about craft, exploring the importance of craftsmanship, how it informs thoughtful design principles and its role in creating meaningful spaces in our built environment. Joining us for this conversation is Romana Jones from Italia, jones Design. Romana shares valuable insights and personal experiences drawn from years of exploring, playing and refining his design processes. So we hope you enjoy this conversation, romana, and please don't forget to like and subscribe.
Speaker 2I guess the basis of this chat was, you know, for those who listened to the last episode anyway, you know that I'm travelling around Europe at the moment getting to see some amazing architecture and it's pretty easy to see, like a lot of those old school architects, like Alvar Aalto and Walter Gropius and Luca Buzia, any of those guys they, they all kind of got this thing where they've like extended their architecture to not only just the design of a building but the craft of lighting, or lighting design or furniture design, which is kind of similar to your art. And so, yeah, just really wanted to talk about how that craft can kind of cross a lot of different media and how that can kind of help to, you know, to shape that design process or refine that design process and be useful within that architecture realm as well. That was kind of the thoughts behind the chat today.
Speaker 3Yeah, you, roman obviously jumped into my mind pretty quickly as somebody who's very involved in the fabrication making side, so I imagine the feedback loop within your own work it's pretty heavy from making to designing, making, designing, yeah yeah, like how, um how to integrate craft in more architectural projects and interior design schemes?
Speaker 5like how can you?
Speaker 2yeah, design at the level of a door handle or a light fixture, for example and then just like, even like a little bit before that, like craft itself and how important that is and is it still? Are we still crafting, I guess, in a way that we used to craft, if that even makes sense and if and what is?
Speaker 1craft and if not, or or if we are, what impact is that having on? Like the design product, everything kind of world, that tangible interaction, is that being lost and is therefore all the stuff around us? Is that being affected? I guess these are pretty big questions.
Speaker 3It's a pretty big topic, but I think there's a lot of.
Speaker 4For me it's probably not the answer people want to hear, but it really depends on the budget, like if the budget allows to go down towards those fine details, designing those detailed and crafted elements. I think it comes down to that, and also back then well, alvar Aalto's era, I think, and also the country there's. It's in the culture that is. Those is a craft. A craft culture is way more, uh, you know, artisanal businesses that are passed on from generation to generation.
Speaker 5It's interesting you say that lisa in our episode with her very briefly touched on it, but I it kind of resonated with me and I think with a, with a few other people as well.
Speaker 1She was sort of saying how she was chatting with a friend who was brought up in portugal and they were taught design appreciation at school or art appreciation at school and I think like that interaction was let's just call them beautiful things.
Speaker 5You know, isn't?
Speaker 1necessarily taught as much specifically in new zealand as it is it maybe as internationally. Maybe that's where the people seeking craft or well-crafted things. Maybe it's a little less here, yeah that's a really interesting point.
Exploring Cross-Media Design Processes
Speaker 4It also reminds me of I used to take woodworking classes from this older guy. He looked like he was in his 80s and he was trained. He's one of the old school woodworker and he trained with I can't remember the name of. He's a well-known woodworker in New Zealand and he founded he's one of the founders of the Nelson School of Woodworking. So he trained with that guy and he was telling me exactly that that in or he told me specifically in England, women are used to be trained to appreciate crafted, well-crafted things. So I think I think there's also that.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think in architecture school when we were going through, we were probably on like the tail end of uh, the the last remaining slither of, probably, workshop culture. I think just after we left, they started removing the metalwork room and downsizing and fitting in more robots and 3D printers.
Speaker 3There wasn't a huge push for it, but there was the space for it and I taught for a semester and we're talking about this today with some ex-MASI woodwork who's running part of the woodwork workshop and just how no students are really pushed into that space anymore, like unless, like you absolutely have to. It's not really part of the design process. I tried to push people into the workshop. I made them do a workshop day, a sewing day, like I brought clay in another day and I think just trying to introduce people to different materials.
Speaker 3I think people respond to different materials like or find one that you really relate to and become a potter, who knows? But I think just play, there's just lowering the threshold. You don't have to go out and be a master potter on the first day. I think just reintroducing play into things, just the act of making, is, I think, pretty beneficial to design, do you think?
Speaker 1Gerard, that you mentioned a play and you're not going to become a master potter on the first day, do you think?
Speaker 5The like, shifting maybe level of patience or attention span, of like the moving generations if we go back like we were just talking about.
Speaker 1Alvar Atoll, you know these older generations. They had more time, seemingly, in their day-to-day life. Maybe not, maybe we're just being naive.
Speaker 5Versus the modern modern day TikTok generation.
Speaker 1You even think about people going through architecture school now younger than us like.
Speaker 5They want results now right.
Speaker 1So do you think that that shift to the more robotic, the less playful kind of like I want a final solution and I want it now, type mentality has resulted in that change in focus of the schools and of the education? Or do you think that that was just it was going to happen regardless?
Speaker 3it's certainly a compelling argument. I don't know. You design on a computer and you want to see it immediately like rather than like I'm in my work. Anyway, I'm big about like discovery, so trying not to draw too much. So while you're making you're kind of designing at the same time so you can stumble into things or let process drive you a little bit. Romano, how do you find you're designing some of your furniture pieces? Do you work purely sketching first before you start making?
Speaker 5Yeah mainly sketching We'll be sketching like a lot of different iterations.
Speaker 4Yeah, then modeling and then making and prototyping, and then. Digital modeling yeah, digital modeling, not fashion, modeling, fashion.
Speaker 5I'll just make a dress.
Speaker 4Make a dress and do a runway, I will model it. Then I would prototype it prototype things in the workshop and then I'll go back to sketching and modeling and refine it. It will be tech, tech, tech.
Speaker 2Yeah, that will be the usual process do you find that the process for sort of designing a space is your? You know, your process for designing a space is kind of similar to designing like a piece of furniture, for example, or, um, you know, do you use the the same sort of kind of, or is there any overlap there or anything?
Speaker 4That's a good question One. They're different and similar, so one similar thing that I like to do personally is I like to draw on isometric. I like to do isometric drawings, so I would create a base on whether it's furniture or a space.
Speaker 5so in the case of well, let's say furniture, for example a stool I would model the stool roughly like just a footprint, say as a extruded box, and then then I would sketch over it just to get the the proportions right then for a
Speaker 4space. It says a kitchen. I'll just get the volume of the kitchen, I'll cut out two walls so I can see through, and then I would model the base cabinet. You know how? Uh, yeah, kitchens 600 deep, 900 high, so I would model those and then I would draw over it. So it's so similar in that way. Um, but it's it's different in scope because I'd like to think when you design a space, there's way more to design really.
Workshop Culture and Material Play
Speaker 2I saw some of your. You've got some of those drawings on your website. I thought they were really, really. I guess I had a lot of information in them, so I can see how it would be such a useful design tool for you.
Speaker 3Yeah, the one on your design services where there's like everything in their plates. Yeah, it's great. Little baskets, aprons.
Speaker 2Oh cheers.
Speaker 5That's an epic drawing.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think the key with drawing.
Speaker 4For me it's to be loose, to kind of not be precious about it, especially at the concept stage, to really yeah, really be explorative. It's okay if you, if your lines are.
Speaker 5I'm not going to be straight so you just I think it's important to build layers upon layers upon layers and not be afraid to just draw.
Speaker 1It's that concept of play again right, yes, exactly. Where does that sketch first or that draw first mentality for you come from? I look at a lot of my peers or our peers, and particularly younger people coming through like they're quite afraid of putting pen to paper and a lot of the time.
Speaker 1I think it is maybe not necessarily a fear, but it's like you want the drawing to look perfect or look right or work, you know and so you kind of have that fear of the line not being in the right place or what have you? But you learn so much from that play process.
Speaker 5Where does that kind of draw first?
Speaker 1mentality for you come from. I think it's just a habit.
Speaker 4I took yeah, it came from when I was a little kid always liked to draw and it goes back to play. I think that was for me being playful, it was just drawing, drawing, drawing and yeah, and I always stuck to drawing through through high school, through uni and that um isometric process that I described. Uh, I did that, yeah, throughout all my uni years. So it's it's so it's just a habit.
Speaker 1I like that you could build your style of design approach. What about you, Gerard and Ben? What do you guys?
Speaker 4do first. What's your kind of like go-to?
Speaker 1get-your-head-in-the-game type starting point.
Speaker 3Yeah, there might be like a thumbnail, but beyond that, for the furniture side of things, object side of things, it's for me it's kind of more sort of yeah, I'm real into process and like letting process kind of have a have a part in guiding your design strategy. A little bit much the same with thecolo, like the little house in Coromandel that was the exercise to do. That was to try and build a house as if you were making a pot or something, so you don't draw or you try to draw nothing and then you kind of let yourself make decisions as you go along. So that one had a thumbnail like maybe that big, maybe I got lucky with that one.
Speaker 3There's a table I'm building at the moment which is actually out of sort of scraps as well. The piccolo was made out of an old shed and whatever scraps I could find laying around. Can I ask a?
Speaker 4question.
Speaker 5What's the reason you called it piccolo?
Speaker 4is it after, after the coffee?
Speaker 3yeah, yeah, there was a cafe down in town. My morning ritual was was cruising down to the cafe for for a piccolo and then I'd go get to work. So it was naturally and then it was like a, a small cute building, like a coffee. Yeah, I just like that exploration and design you're.
Speaker 1That's the one with it, that's the one with the curve yeah, this one yeah yeah, I love that house little target, yeah, I was gonna say, jared, your explorative, explorative process is very tactile like very real as well, very built. I guess this kind of like leans back into the craft side of things, like it's. It's rare that we get to kind of the piccolo is the exception.
Speaker 3It's rare we get to do that with with architecture, just due to the scale it's a terrible process for architecture we make it up as they go along, yeah and I come and build a house in your house, but I'm not going to design anything and we're just going to start like. You have to laugh, yeah, because it's so little and I did it for free.
Speaker 1Um, you get a few more, but, but at the same time, but at the same time, because you're hands-on, you're working it out in the process or everything.
Speaker 1It's actually so incredibly well thought out, I find, with design, if you do it through the traditional means or traditional ways, because you're kind of like taking something from one medium to another medium, you lose nuance or you lose kind of moment or intent. It's quite hard maybe to capture that something that you, that you draw, is hard to then replicate in real life, and vice versa, whereas if you're kind of like working in the medium that you are then going to end up building in, um, I find that to be a lot easier.
Speaker 5We've talked about this before I do a lot of model making as my initial stages.
Speaker 1Basically it it's just like card models, card and paper models, but it would maybe from time to time, but just small, formal, like explorations, and I think through that you can understand shape and shadow and context and stuff a lot easier than you can even drawing on a piece of paper. What about you, Ben?
Speaker 2Yeah, I guess I'm still trying to figure it out. Obviously, you know, I did my building apprenticeship and when I was with Makers we had like a big factory and so craft was a lot easier or playing was a lot easier, did a lot with like timber and that sort of thing then. But now I feel I've kind of lost that a little bit and I'm designing a little bit too much in the digital realm. I know what I want, but I've got no other kind of media to be able to draw it out a little bit further. It's not that I don't have any other meters, just I don't. I haven't kind of tested other options and so like coming over here, and you know I sat, and went to um Albalto's studio and sat in the seat that he used to draw on, which was really awesome.
Speaker 2It's like 800 mils off the ground, and so it's like this big white table, and he's a strong believer that a white table is what you want to be able to put your cheeks down and not get distracted or get the best out of it. Then it's low, so you can kind of like crouch over it and there's a total immersion.
Speaker 4What's the?
Speaker 2material the table. Yeah, it was just a tinder table, like a classic kind of alto table with you know, folded Like a melamine like a laminate, yeah.
Speaker 5Like a melamine, yeah.
Speaker 2It was kind of hard to tell exactly what the top was, but it was very flat. So I presume something simple like that, which I'm like man. That's such a cool idea, just laying out big sheets of paper and really just going for it, and then there's just big drawing, sketches of his, and then you can kind of see this chain of orders just shifting constantly between, like design, architecture, furniture, design, how it all kind of molds together and it's just crossed over between this lighting kind of becomes part of the architecture, and then so does the furniture and it all becomes one piece of well-designed environment, so I'm just like I'm designing the architecture.
Speaker 2It's like I'm just designing the space that you are there to enjoy and then it all comes together collectively. I'm super inspired by that sort of thing and we've got all these plans to go home and sort of work on those additional craft skills a little bit more, and I don't know how that is going to pan out for me at the moment but I guess you're just going to start somewhere, and I know I have, like the woodworking side already, but I would like something a little bit faster.
Speaker 2I guess something that you gerard you you're really good at just doing quick turnarounds test something, see how it goes, you know, like next iteration, next iteration. So, yeah, that's something that I'm really going to work on over the next coming months, I think yeah, yeah, like what what?
Speaker 1other, I mean that's exactly what we're kind of like trying to trying to work out being like what else?
The Design Process: Sketching to Making
Speaker 1what not non-architectural, or maybe even like non-design, uh, crafts or activities, but do you guys do anything else, that sort of like sharpens that design eye or that skill or you're understanding proportion, texture, flavor, whatever. For me I'd say that, like, my creative outlet is cooking. You know, yeah, and okay, there's absolutely no bearing on the architecture that I do, really, but it gives you kind of an understanding on, maybe, like how elements go together or the idea of crafting a plate or something like that. You know, it's all design at the end of the day. What else do you guys employ?
Speaker 2to sharpen those skills that aren't necessarily work focused yeah, I think I've seen like a lot of people start to test a whole bunch of things, or maybe it's just I've been observing it more recently, but I think it can really be anything from, like you know, trying to do your own art to pottery, to even like the model making like you were talking about, to you know what Gerard does, the actual furniture or lighting design.
Speaker 2I think it's just like anything that has a design an iterative design process that makes you like think in a certain way, that is like trying to draw out what you're actually trying to portray, or trying to. Yeah, I think like it's about getting like that, that stuff out there.
Speaker 4I don't know how to explain it like if you were say you're, you're going to a pottery class and they say make a plate. You're saying you have a rough idea on how to make the plate, but it's through the process, through making the plate, that gets you there.
Speaker 2Exactly, and you're like oh my. God oh my God, figuring out, you know, taking that from like a concept, something that you think you can do to actually be able to get it the way you wanted, I guess.
Speaker 3I reckon it's a culture. I've had a couple welding courses where a woman who weld welding courses which it's pretty epic to see old Sarah Bookman at the moment getting to the point where she's comfortable in the workshop and can start to really like loosely design. It's almost like it's like seeing a sketch and I think that's the sweet spot for me. Anyway, in a workshop where you can, you can actually play like you've got the basic tools you can know how to how to do a weld.
Speaker 3You know how to chop things. I think that that for me is is like three-dimensional sketching. It's this is the 3d printer and computer all in one.
Speaker 4Yeah, sketch with the the welder yeah, I mean you'll you'll have a bit of steel yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, that's, that's the process.
Speaker 2I reckon that's the sweet spot for me I think another part of it is wanting to create something. I guess this must be an influence from gerard, but wanting to create something a little bit more original. It's hard to like. It's hard because it it's overwhelmingly feels like everything's already being done, because it doesn't even matter if it has been done or not. Like coming to those set of conclusions yourself throughout that design process. That's what that iterative process is all about yeah, you've.
Speaker 3You've designed a hundred million chairs and tables. It doesn't. It doesn't really get old, does it? Or?
Speaker 4are you sick? To be honest, I'd really like to do. Your process sounds way cooler, gerard. Like how you sketch with materials. I'm like damn. I wish it only happened once and that was during the lockdown. I don't know if there's a collection called the Bricolo Collection.
Speaker 3Is that the little?
Speaker 4galvanized. That's the one. Yeah, little steel. Yeah, it's all steel and it's got trusses. And there's the materials. Yeah, it's all steel, but it's just flat bars, steel sheets and steel rods. Yeah, that's a really beautiful little, so I love that one. Thanks, man. And it was because during the lockdown I didn't have access to getting materials and I was a bit bored, so I was like, oh what, what can I do?
Speaker 4and and that was when I started to sketch with the materials I had on hand and, as a result, um like iterations back to initially the some of the joints where the flat bars are were timber, as I wanted to use the this, the friction of the timber that holds the steel rods together, to make, um, the trestles, because it's a trestle profile that's applied to the whole collection, and that didn't really work out. So then I went with let's just do it out of all steel, and that's how it came out. So I'd love to keep exploring that, like sketching with materials, but I'm not used to it.
Speaker 2I think that's a bit daunting, whereas for you, gerard, it sounds like it's natural for you when you talk about it it's hard not to want to have like a fully refined plan in front of you before you hit that workshop floor and then perfectly, you know what I mean. Like it's hard to get away from that chain of thought, isn't it?
Speaker 5that's actually failing again, though yeah, yeah, I mean it's very counterintuitive, especially from architecture it's like you have to plan, execute yeah yeah, yeah, because how would that?
Speaker 2work for building a house. I guess it'd be similar to what you did with the piccolo way where you just like you start with some framing and you stand that up and then you find something else it would be a nightmare.
Speaker 5It's gonna be fun. Don't worry about it trust me, guys.
Speaker 3You said ramblin struck me off the list real quick.
Speaker 2Oh you'd be gone just your whole work starts with a variation and it's just that's it, it's a variation house and you've got to like document it as you go along. So you start with building it and then you document it, get that processed and then continue.
Understanding Materials Deeply
Speaker 1you know it's possible Okay it doesn't apply that well to architecture, but I think having this architectural-adjacent ability to craft or to design or to look at things and be tactile with materiality.
Speaker 1It's ultimately going to make what you do do as a profession whether that be furniture whether that be architecture, whether that be design of something else, it's going to make it so much more profound and insightful and, like, the nuance is going to be a lot better, mainly because you've gone through, you understand at least you understand that try, fail, play. You know that tactile nature of designing, rather than being like I'm going to be perfect from day one and this thing's going to be basically a robot house, to being something that has so much emotion involved, and you know,
Speaker 2embedded in it. You know, yeah, do you guys feel quite constrained about, like, the materials that are out there, or are you still kind of excited about discovering different uses for various materials?
Speaker 4I think um what I found for off the shelf materials like tiling for splashback in the kitchen.
Speaker 4I find those to be a little bit more limiting in comparison to like where you are ben, the selection must be amazing. Or or even in australia there's yeah, there's like way more tiles to select from so off the shelf materials, I feel quite anything, but when it comes to bespoke cabinetry, I think there's still for me personally, I always try to, I want to say, invent a new cabinetry typology for each project and test new details within those cabinets.
Speaker 2I think that's cool and, like Gerard, obviously you've found a thousand ways to use a bit of steel, so you're obviously still having a lot of fun, you know designing with your with you know the materials that you're using, which?
Speaker 2is great. Sometimes I feel, I wouldn't say bored, but always having to try and think of like new and exciting ways to use materials out there, especially like, for you know, in the architecture side of things, where it's really hard to come up with something that's somewhat creative without it looking like a thousand other buildings or something like that, but you know the organic stuff that you do, gerard, for example, is still very unique, and probably because of its organic nature.
Speaker 3On the note of tiles, what was that big public building you did near the end of his career? A ginormous set of buildings the one in.
Speaker 2Helsinki yeah, the theatre there Because he's got his own tiles. He invented the semi-curved tiles. That's so cool, and that's kind of what I was alluding to still being creative and designing it down a bit.
Speaker 3Yeah, like still being creative. Yeah, designing it down a bit. Yeah, I feel now most people just designers for obvious reasons of finances, most likely, yeah, stick to specified products, whereas architects back in the day were a lot more willing to design a whole new tile or we're going to design everything. Yeah, and I just think bringing that mind frame back as a possibility will open a lot of doors. Yeah.
Speaker 2That's a great point of view. That's good, is this?
Speaker 1restricted by Romana's first comment at the start of the pod, where it's like it's budget constraint Are people less willing to experiment or to pay for that experimentation within a project? That's the whole conversation.
Speaker 2right the craft conversation like what is the level of craft? Is it a budget thing that's diluting the level of craft? If we had more budget, obviously the level of craft would be better. Or is the level of craft, even we had more budget, obviously the level of craft would be better. Or is the level of craft even with a low budget good? I'm like that's the question.
Speaker 3You just take matters into your own hands, don't you romana?
Speaker 1this is, this is the ultimate solution you guys are the best proponents of that.
Speaker 5Do it yourself yeah, get it done, then done.
Speaker 4I mean I think you with a tight budget, yeah sure you can maybe do the handles that are customized and say they could be turned wooden handles.
Speaker 4Because those wouldn't be too expensive to, because often cupboard handles you need 20 of them, because often cupboard handles you need 20 of them. So it's worth to do a batch with a CNC lathe and there's a few manufacturers out there in Oakland anyways, that do have that. So yeah, depending is I'm kind of contradicting myself, I think for all the elements. If we take kitchen, for example, if we want all the elements of the kitchen to be bespoke, including the cabinets, then yes, if you want the craft to be spread throughout the whole room, then yes, it comes down to budget.
Speaker 4I do wanna say it's a certain budget tier where all the elements can be truly bespoke. And then there's another tier and this is from my experience, another tier where you could do a hybrid of customized, crafted elements like the handles with off the shelf cabinets for example. So I think there is space for a little bit of craft in that last example.
Speaker 2I think you hit the nail on the head there. I think you can get good craftmanshipmanship even though you're kind of repeating. I don't think it needs to be bespoke, to be of that like level of craft, like, for example, manufacturing a light. You're not going to just do a one-off. It's still going to be a well-crafted light even though it's kind of mass-produced. Slightly I'm just trying to understand what what good craftmanship would look like in architecture. It's easy to say, that's well-crafted furniture or light, or this or that. What is a well-crafted?
Speaker 2architecture Is it just good build quality, or is it well-designed and well-built, or is it fully bespoke, for example? You know what I mean. Is it fully bespoke, for example?
Speaker 1You know what I mean.
Speaker 5I think it's more an understanding of the material that you're working with or the materials that you're working with.
Speaker 1I think that's the essence of craftsmanship is an intimate knowledge of your medium, and that, to me, is good architecture. Or really good crafted architecture is that, if we look at it on a mass scale for instance, let's take today or ando an intimate emotional connection to concrete can craft a building out of concrete.
Speaker 2No, like better than anyone yeah and he's a master craftsman at that material the opposite of what I was saying before about getting bored with materials. We should be going in the opposite direction. It's really narrowing down on one material and maximising it to its fullest potential.
Speaker 1It's not necessarily one, but it could be a collection of many. Like Romain was talking about a kitchen, the bespoke elements that you could have, the handles. There's many elements, but it's having that deep understanding, emotional connection to that material, rather than just being like I pick this cladding because the clients liked it.
Speaker 5I think this because, yes, because it's off the shelf.
Speaker 1You know, like which, which we, which we're so guilty of in architecture just cherry picking stuff because because it's there rather than being like. I've made this decision because there's actual reason behind it and this is how it's like developed and that's where that like tactility, and that architecture, I think is, is the knowledge of the knowledge of what you're using to build that thing.
Speaker 3Definitely. I think that's just not taught at architecture school. You're not taught to learn and understand a material working with hardwood versus a plywood, or your limitations of a material, what you can do with it. Because once you kind of understand it then you can kind of, in the ideal world, push it as far as you can. I think lot of architecture is. Joseph rasmus, prince from rick's architects, said in a lecture once that we're just cake decorators. So you build a structure.
Speaker 3Yeah then you like, clad it with a color or a material. You know, and I think that's often the way people do, like a kitchen or something, but I think something that sets your kitchens apart, romano, is a clear understanding of material and you're getting far more creative outcomes because the structure is dependent on the material. You're not decorating cakes, yeah, thanks.
Speaker 4Yes, I do like to use materials for that practical purpose, not just for decoration.
Speaker 3Yeah, exactly the two sort of meet together in a pretty nice junction. I think your kitchens particularly are really pretty in the use of steel. Use of steel in kitchen, or like how thin some of your kitchen frames are, for example the one behind you. Even how thin some of your structural frames get, I think creates a real pretty kitchen.
Speaker 1And that comes from that understanding right. You inherently know your material. You know that it can achieve what you're wanting it to do, rather than having you know an engineer or you know a product rep or somebody being like, oh, it has to be this big because that's just the way that everybody else does it.
Speaker 3Or you come back six months later and your shelves are bowing. They're all sagged, yeah, but you know through trial and error and play that, that's going to be the case, and I think that's where truly successful outcomes you know,
Speaker 5are resulting from.
Speaker 3Yeah, I'm just a big advocate for people learning material.
Speaker 4Yeah, there's a quote I want to share from James Dyson, the guy who invented Vacuum cleaners, not the vacuum cleaner guy.
Speaker 3Yeah, he's a leader.
Speaker 4Yeah, he is a really good story. He said that the visceral experience of making things by hand is a wise teacher.
Speaker 5so in his company, um, in the uk, all the engineers he pushes them to make all the prototyping themselves.
Speaker 4They're not just like on the computer drawing, they understand the materials.
Speaker 1See, that's interesting and just kind of been thinking about your point gerard that you said we were never taught at architecture school how to understand materials. And then, ramana, you've talked about these people learning or understanding materials, or at least the design process in a work environment. I mean, we've all worked in architectural practice and neither still are or doing or doing other things now.
Speaker 1But like, did you ever get that opportunity? I've never really had that opportunity to truly understand material within practice. Have you, or have you gone and sought that elsewhere Because that opportunity hasn't been afforded? To you, for me, yeah, for everyone, really Specifically you and Gerard, I think, given that you're probably the more inherent understanding of the materials that you work with besides Ben and I, a lot of Ben's buildings have fallen down, so it's pretty interesting.
Speaker 4Well, ben, you were saying you know about woodworking, right.
Speaker 2Yes, I've done a lot of that. I've kind of weirdly left it in my tracks over the last couple of years. I need to bring it back. I had ambitions for a while there to like like everything I do do out of like raw kind of material, structures and kind of more of like post and beam designs and that sort of thing, and my current designs are just like my house. I built a house really similar to that and then I've lost it over the last few years and I've been meaning to bring it back and understand what happened, why I kind of went away. Yeah, I've lost it over the last few years and I've been meaning to bring it back and understand what happened why I kind of went away.
Speaker 5You've lost it.
Speaker 2Well, I just haven't been designing like that. I've kind of been put into more of a forced to learn digital development realm and I have lost that kind of bespoke kind of stuff that I need to work on, I think. Bring it back.
Speaker 5Like that university stuff Bring it back. Bring it back, bring it back.
Speaker 2Bring it back, bring it back, bring craft back and going back to that university stuff though gerard.
Speaker 2I think that it's not really up to them. I think you've learned what you have through your own kind of initiatives and you've just been like grinding away doing your own apprenticeship within your own backyard. That's how you've got to where you are, your current understanding, and I'm sure it's probably the same with you, romana. So I think a lot of it is just hanging it upon yourself to pull out what you think, what your kind of like passion, or it's like a semi-hobby to experiment and play. It comes back to that play, doesn't it?
Speaker 3Yeah, a lot of this does come down to access to facilities.
Speaker 5The more facilities.
Speaker 3maybe the more play.
Speaker 1I'm pretty aware of that, yeah if every architecture firm could have an adjacent workshop like Strong Group or something, or something you know would be fantastic well, you just need one every well per every four firms, right?
Craftsmanship in Architecture
Speaker 2you just need to like have your workshop in the middle and then have like two or three or four firms around it and it's just a shared space yeah, I mean there's a lot of um community workshops around, like the shed has now changed to a different owner, but it's still a community workshop.
Speaker 4I think the name is about to change.
Speaker 5I don't know what about in?
Speaker 4Wellington are there.
Speaker 1I just know we've got like a local shed. But yeah, other than that, there are community workshops, but I don't necessarily think they are necessarily woodworking or metalworking or crafting workshops.
Speaker 5Correct me if I'm wrong, but um there's a lot of community art spaces, but equally, I think that's just as relevant.
Speaker 1You know, we're obviously we're kind of talking more, more tangible material, necessary tangible materials, but more like solid materials, but like pottery or even painting or anything like. All of these art forms have the same impact and influence on, on your design and in the creative realm as, as you know, like as this crafting that we're talking about, which is a little bit more sculptural, I guess, do you have your own facilities Romano.
Speaker 4I do. I'm really really lucky. So the house we rent, lejar, has seen a fairly large basement that's been renovated Awesome. Yeah, it's all been slabbed and converted that into a woodworking and metal workshop. It gets. I mean, it's I'm happy with, like, I love that space, but it gets filled really quickly, imagine.
Speaker 2And so you just make a voice.
Speaker 3You want to fill the space, you give it away, yeah it adds up, so quickly it's crazy.
Speaker 5Holding me to tell him this You're like oh, that's helpful me. And telling me You're like oh, that's helpful.
Speaker 4Yeah exactly You're like oh damn it's, we're going to use that someday. Oh, that's long enough.
Speaker 2Genius from his childhood. Genius from his landlord, though, because the the task of moving is just so daunting, they're never gonna go anywhere, you know. So I'm never moving out, but it's pretty good, though you've been doing a pretty good job of collecting various tools as well. Adrian, you've got some pretty useful stuff in there now. Yeah, just got a panel saw nice and and a planer.
Speaker 3I'm going to try and do some timber things. I was thinking could you hydroform timber? That's the next thought process.
Speaker 1You could probably hydroform bamboo. It's got the same kind of tensile strength as steel.
Speaker 3Well, the theory is based on if you leave water like your timber out in the rain, it's going to warp to shit. Yeah, maybe if you just fill it up with water water like your timber out in the rain, it's gonna walk to shit. Yeah, maybe if you just fill it up with water, I don't know put a timber box together, thin plywood or something, and then just or even just have a sheet of ply outside with a bunch of water on it for a week, I wonder if it would deform into a hydroform it's been.
Speaker 1It's been stabilizing it, though, but yeah, it's worth testing Exactly.
Speaker 4For your mum's kitchen. Yeah yeah, for a bench top, that'd be a real good bench top.
Speaker 1It's cool but like honestly, gerard, it's a real pain in the ass Every time I put a carrot on my plate keeps falling off.
Speaker 4I just have a bunch of fruits in the middle.
Speaker 3Genius, we're coming up with a good, big idea today.
Speaker 4Yeah, it's like a big fruit bowl, like a bench top and a fruit bowl.
Speaker 3A whole dining table is like a bowl. Everyone's food just ends up in the middle like a big paella.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 1I was thinking more like a pig slot than that's your next table idea, Romano.
Speaker 4Yeah, I'm stealing that idea.
Speaker 5It's actually not too bad. Yeah, a fruit bowl Actually. I quite like that idea.
Speaker 3Is it a table? Is it a fruit bowl? Uh, actually I quite like that idea. Is it a table? Is it a fruit bowl?
Speaker 4yeah, like a really nice subtle curve.
Speaker 3I can see that yeah, I um, I'm always influenced by a big fan of who's it? Mumbai studio who like have a workshop at their studio and they would do one-to-one mock-ups of like.
Speaker 3I think often they'd do like the section of the building, so you could kind of get the Eve sort of feeling. I love the idea of an architecture firm combined with a workshop, like what? Maybe Renzo Piano Building Workshop, maybe what that was like at the very start, or like dan holtrop's workshop, where he just pulls concrete into dirt and lifts it up and looks at his own textured panels. A place of play, or like material experimentation yeah, I'm 100 with you there.
Speaker 2I'm gonna, I'm going to go out there and do it, do it, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4Yeah. What's the reason for that trip then? Is it to get? Inspired?
Speaker 2Yeah, just to have a look at some good architecture. I haven't been to these Scandinavian countries before, so we've been traveling around Denmark and Sweden and then Finland and now in Germany and then Paris tomorrow.
Speaker 2So just yeah, haven't been to them and just wanted to experience that design culture, pick up some lights on the way which I actually had a successful flea market win of like some amazing lights and there's just like you go to the flea market, there's like louis paulson stuff here and there and you just I don't know it's like a different quality and all of the apartments are just so well crafted. They're stunning. So it's that and then the other side was just like really a better understanding of that medium density realm where it's starting to become a thing in our country, but it's been a thing for hundreds of years over here and they're so well densified, densilated, densilated.
Speaker 1Densilated, densilated.
Speaker 4Densilated.
Workshop Access and Community Spaces
Speaker 2We'll edit that out. We'll edit that out, that is staying at 100 so well desolated that and yeah, there's just so many good examples of amazing, deep but well-designed spaces that I just wanted to experience pretty much, absolutely worth my time. For sure, my partner is a architect as well, so we have the same interests, which makes it easier alvar alto's workshop was actually the one of the highlights.
Speaker 2It's just so well designed and it's so interesting because he was like a big fan of italy which was spent a lot of time in italy and he had this design style, but then he went to italy on his honeymoon and he came back and he basically completely changed his design style about how things are kind of merged together a little bit more organically on his buildings and you kind of see, like that, as early designs verse like, like you know, experiencing the space and then coming a little bit, coming away with a complete different sense of architecture, I guess so looking forward to seeing your looking forward to seeing your design evolution post this trip now, ben, it can't hurt
Speaker 2right. It's just like doing an iterative process. You're actually experiencing these spaces are the same as experiencing those different creative designs or whatever. So I think it's pretty. It's been pretty insightful, for sure.
Speaker 4Yeah, so his workshop, where was that?
Speaker 2So it's in Helsinki and it's so cool. From the outside it's never really much to look at but it's so well designed around stuff he'd taken from, for example, italy or some of his travels. He's got like an amphitheater courtyard where, you know, people can go and have lunch and kind of look out or do their presentations outside, kind of all sit around a semi-circle and then just use some natural light. So they've got like pop-out windows everywhere where their dream boards used to be, and so they have their pinups on these like special walls that the light is reflecting directly onto. And yeah, it's just, it's just amazing really. And all these spaces are very large. Everyone has like a good kind of workshop area essentially to work in, as opposed to just like a one meter desk with a computer. You know there's a lot, so much more hands-on, yeah uh.
Speaker 2So it's kind of like so by workshop, it's a studio with where they work with materials, exactly, yeah, so each, each person has like a uh, 20 square meter space, almost, maybe like 10 to 20, and they've just got materials everywhere board boards everywhere, tables um no, not so much like machines or anything like that, probably. But you know, like they did a lot of like lighting designs and, um, that testing and all of their tiles. They had like the iteration of all their tiles that they've done over the years there and then obviously just like your model making and traditional stuff, which is pretty interesting, just a good work environment. It's kind of like mixed media.
Speaker 4I guess, yeah, it sounds like it's the spaciousness that's quite different from a typical architectural studio.
Speaker 2Yeah, just a generous surface area to work with and then, yeah, just a lot of natural light, and then he just had like a whole bunch of stuff going on with what. What's their name?
Speaker 1art tech is it um? Who did the?
Speaker 2manufacturing all their furniture, which is also so interesting, like there's like I can't replace.
Speaker 5Well, that's the funny thing.
Speaker 2That original, not even the original stuff, the proper stuff isn't actually plywood, it's actually solid timber and it's just like slotted into one of the strips yeah, okay.
Speaker 2But then it's like that's only to get forward to the bend, but then it goes solid timber again. So when you look at the proper, proper, the original kind of chairs and whatnot that you can still buy today, the quality and the craftsmanship is just like 10 times better than the ikea ripoffs and that was kind of like designed for. You know, like there's some of it was designed for like the hospitals and that sort of thing for like higher end stuff right down to like the layperson who can, you know, have some of those stools?
Speaker 2But it was meant to be like relatively affordable, well-designed, well-crafted furniture, and then the lighting as well, which is pretty impressive. So that was definitely, yeah, yeah, the highlight of the trip romana.
Speaker 3Are you you're still making like all your furniture in-house, or are you getting to the point where some of that's getting outsourced for?
Speaker 4the furniture. It's semi-outsourced, so I'll do the laminations. I mean it's very basic woodworking. I'll do the lamination in-house. And then I've got a friend who owns a CNC router I said it to him who I think he would have been perfect to include in this conversation.
European Design Inspiration and Alto's Workshop
Speaker 4His background is in architecture Alistair Munro is his name, so he has a CNC and he wraps the laminated planks, then comes back. I sent it off, then send it to the polishers and then they spread with polyurethane. Awesome, so I do. I do that in-house, semi-in-house, and then the metal work I work with local manufacturers in. They're based in henderson and their, their workshop, um yeah, it's very built for higher volume production then it's and it's interesting to get to visit and see how they operate versus a workshop like um, like a that's designed for bespoke pieces, like one-off elements, very different models and the way they're set up.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 3Yeah so More linear. Romano, did you find that kind of liberating, starting to outsource, because I think when I came and visited you that was quite a few years ago now, but I think you had a jig for your stools, like the ones that are at mr goes. I think I think you were just starting to like nail out how to weld those together as fast as you could yeah, yes, it definitely was.
Speaker 4Um, I mean, it's always been a goal to get high volume orders and be able to outsource the production Because from a business point of view it's viable. I want to say it's easy money. Yeah, if your margins are right, you hit the right markets and you've got a product they like then just press play with the manufacturers and see you in a month.
Speaker 3Yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely yeah, and that professional comes back perfect every time. Well, you know exactly it's the level of finish is generally pretty awesome. Yeah it is.
Speaker 4Yeah, I'm like they have way better than my welds, yeah.
Speaker 3I feel like a fraud sometimes. Like you know, I do all this welding but as soon as like an actual welder, I got a friend who works at a large industrial workshop in Poriru and just him and the guys he works with, like their actual skills, their actual technical fabrication skills are just like moons ahead of where. Where I will ever be. Yeah, you're always like yeah, like we can't kid ourselves, we're not like actual mega craftsmen, like we're. I'm a fraud in the industry.
Speaker 1Really I'm using it as a design tool at least you're not playing at all yeah, not a fraud at all.
Speaker 4No, no, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3You're not at all, though, because these guys that do are amazing, like it's incredible what, how good you can be if you're like welding all day I know it's insane, like how?
Speaker 4uh? They're like oh, if I weld it, if I do these stacks here, the, the steel is going to move that way. It's yeah, it's pretty incredible their understanding of the material yeah, anyone can weld.
Speaker 3But can you weld something square?
Speaker 4Yeah, yeah, it's a whole other game. That's why you've got a hydroforming HR.
Speaker 1you don't have to worry about squares anymore.
Speaker 3Yeah, Generally makes it a lot easier. It's been awesome.
Speaker 1Loving the check craft.
Speaker 4Yeah, it was really fun.
Speaker 3Loving your work. Thanks for having me. Yeah, keep, keep, keep building cool stuff if you want to hang out at the workshop.
Speaker 4Come and come and visit I do.
Speaker 2I'll be hitting you up as soon as I get home I mean I don't want to set your expectation.
Speaker 4It's a very small workshop. No, no, no.
Speaker 2That's fine, that's fine.
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