ECOLOGY AND DESIGN  Interview with Günther Horntrich (Fachhochschule Köln) Prof. Horntrich, from Italy, the German market seems to pay more attention to environmental topics than the Italian one. Is it only an impression? Few years ago the sensibility of German costumers towards seemed to be a lot stronger so that it wasn't difficult to find people open to spend big money in order to buy eco-compatible products. Let's think about the extreme case of clothes made by potato bags... Today instead costumers consider above all the long lasting of the product. So a cheap pair of shoes is not ecological because at the time of the purchase we think we can buy a new one. In particular, in the field of furnishings we have to think about objects easy to dis-assembly whose defective pieces can be taken apart,repaired or replaced. If the word ecodesign is by now used by everyone it is equally true that the borders of the thematic still aren't neat. Is it possible to give a definition of ecodesign? Which are its aims? Which the specific competences? From an environmental point of view it is decisive above all "to make things with little material and much efficiency". Siemens for instance talks just about light design. An example? The coffee machine that we designed. Every thing is brought to the essential. The single parts are repairable; one can be used to serve coffee at the table but also to heat water. Nothing to do with many machines available today on the market, all automatic, with many functions, but very difficult to use. Perhaps not by chance we won three prizes with our coffee machine. Between the traditional tasks of design, there is certainly the high aesthetic definition of the product. With guilty delay we understood that this aspect concerns and is fundamental also in the case of "green" products. So, from many sides they talk about Minimalism as possible contribution for an aesthetic of the sustainable development... With our design we go just in this direction. An example is the set designed Rosenthal in ceramics and wood, with a simple and essential shape, totally without decorations. The quick obsolescence of many objects is often due to a decoration excess. Just think about Alessi's objects: with their pastel colors, they are obsolete right in the moment when they get on the market. Up till now, great enterprises above all are the ones that, for their bigger financial, technological and human resources, have paid attention to environmental problematic. But if we reflect on the nature of the model it is possible to assume that, under the push of a more sensitive market, also small enterprises have their own chance to play. Above all considering the reality of the districts that have many points in common - strong territorial radication, high decomposition of productive cycles... - with the model of industrial ecosystem. What's your opinion about this subject? Craftsmen are better ecologists than designers. The problem is that, unfortunately, often, they do not have the consciousness of their work. The main problem is to make them understand that ecology has to do directly with honesty. I'm referring to the craftsman who absolutely couldn't understand that to hide shaving-wood, pretending it's multilayer, it's totally wrong. However the contribution coming to the topic of eco-sustainable products from small enterprises is remarkable. I like to mention Campion, a small company in the outskirts of Colon, that produces wooden kitchen furnitures and that re-uses the flashes of working for the production of heating energy and, for choice, commercializes its products only within a radius of thirty kilometers. Defenetly the support of the Design Zentrums becomes fundamental because they have to work not only to disseminate the culture of the design in the enterprises, but also in order to stimulate their attention towards environmental topics. The role of Design Zentrums, partly equivalent to our Service Centers, is undoubtedly very important. From a strictly professional point of view, however, we can assume the creation of external structures for the enterprises, able to offer them, after the design of the product, all kind of services - management, marketing, environmental auditing - in order to compete in saturate and complex markets as current ones. This is partly what we do at the Yellow Circle. We worked for the design of baskets for underwear on behalf of a company that produced iron tables. Initially we did not think about the problem of the basket but of how clothings could be transported from A to B also considering the differences between cities, where there are launderettes, and country towns where there is nothing similar. So we thought of a soft container, that you can fold and place wherever you want, with good space saving. Emblematic also the new stylo design for Pelikan. We have been asked for a global design, including packaging and graphics. But, above all, we had to prefigure a new way to use the pen. A stylo recharge can be done in two ways: through cartridges or "fishing" from one ink container. The second method is certainly more ecological because it allows to save a huge amount of cartridges. So we thought of a pen that could be loaded from the back side and that contained an ink quantity ten times bigger, at the same time limitating the risks of annoying losses. There are two models of this pen: the first, more expensive, for "designer" and the second, less expensive, devised for the students. In both cases the shape is so simple, essential that for next ten years it will not be old-fashioned. Here's the main task of the design, or better saying, of the design-management: to advise the enterprise about innovation matters. The biggest problem is still however to find a dialogue with the companies, to understand each other, to be accepted. It's like when you go to restaurant, the first time is decisive: if the quality of food and the service is not good we won't go back again. And from this point of view it's difficult to talk about the lengthening of life of the product. I think that the difficulty of teaching eco design is just to make students understand that under an environmental profile it's necessary to think in terms of satisfaction of needs more than of products. And that therefore the design of an object is only the point of arrival of wider strategy that comprises also the important definition aspects of unmaterial nature. Undoubtedly, also under this profile we play the challenge to didactics. So in Colon we talk about LCA, eco-budgets, analysis of the line of product (Produktlinienanalyse), ecomarketing, but we try also to stimulate organizing attitudes of th students, to develop their intuition, prefiguring new scenarios. According to this point of view we have organized a one week - workshop about the topic "design of the survival". The students organized in two groups lived for a week in an old school in the forest, and everyone of them could only carry two objects, including food. The attempt was at the same time to develop their skills of coordination and to make them understand how you can live with very few things, with what you really need. An other practice is the one that I define of "the mowing machine". If we think about a group of neighbours, everyone with its private garden, how can we solve the of the grass-mowing for every single garden? There are different options: we can buy a mowing machine, rent it, buy a scythe or, ... a sheep. If we ignore the last two options, for the obvious disadvantages, from the environmental point of view the best solution better is the one of the rental, but, in this case, it is necessary to think about the design of a new mowing machine, lighter and of small dimensions in order to be able to be transported in the trunk of a car. In Italy, the debate about environmental problems is backward positioned, comparing to Germany. What will be the contribution of our Country? German designers, for their mainly technical education, pay a lot of attention to the function, think so much on everything that, in the end, sometimes, they can't plan. Moreover in Germany there are rules for every single thing. If I want to make a piece of furniture everything is prescribed, the width, the height, the point of view... it's terrible! In Italy they are much braver in the design and also entrepreneurs want re to risk - I'm thinking, as an example, to the great idol of my youth Joe Colombo, who left us too soon. Therefore I look at the Italian design in a very positive way, above all for its strong initiative, for its ability of "giving strength to the thought". Mostly Italian designers are architects, and perhaps also for this reason they are in the position to think freely, to see things in a very open. I like this about Italy, the lightness... Maybe it's the sun... However I think that with the opening of the frontiers we will gain a great mixture. Perhaps right on the profile of the definition of new strategies, more environmentally aware, our fantasy, "ours visionary" skills can help us. Probably. There is a sentence I often use in my lessons: "The designer is an universal learner, knows a lot but nothing punctual". This, perhaps, is its main characteristic.

Text by: Giuseppe Lotti I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. In cooperation with: Maria Angeles Fernandez Alvarez Elena Granchi Sonia Morini TOP