According to the experts

The IFI congress gathered some of design's big names in Dubai.

CID discusses the key issues, trends and challenges facing interior designers at present, as highlighted by big-name speakers at last month’s IFI Congress and Index Exhibition

“This year was crucial,” noted Piero Lissoni. “And it was crucial for different reasons, not just because of the crisis. 2009 was important because we are remodelling our consciousness around the future, around new ways of working and around new possibilities,” he elaborated.

This was a key theme that wove itself in and out of most of the presentations during last month’s IFI Design Congress. The traditional sustainability debate seems to have evolved, almost imperceptibly, into a wider, more realistic discussion about creating design that is intelligent, innovative, and ‘human’. “We have to be a little bit more intelligent,” insisted Lissoni, who was in Dubai to speak at the congress. “This is the trend. My clients are saying to me: ‘Please; it is time to use a little bit more intelligence’.”

Ross Lovegrove, one of the other big-name speakers at the IFI Congress, mirrored some of these sentiments. 2009 was notable not only because of the tumultuous global economy – but because of the changes in attitude spurred
by the crisis, he maintained.

“It has been an unusual year, and not just because of what has happened in the global economy,” Lovegrove explained to CID. “What’s been good for me is that people are still interested in innovation, and they see innovation maybe as a way out.

“With all of the environmental work that I do, finally there’s a wonderful synergy between the natural environment, organic design and the technology needed to make things happen – harnessing energy, sustainably, for free, for example, which is something that I’ve been talking about for a long long time,” he said.

“I’m not a designer that’s just jumped onto that idea. I’ve been doing it since I was very young. There’s the feeling that if I can stick with it, now is a good time. It’s a good time for everything that I’ve been talking about. Maybe this is my window,” he added.

A more regional take on the sustainability debate was presented by John Alexander Smith of the American University of Dubai and Karim Farah, a senior architect with Dar Al-Handash, who is actively contributing to the establishment of the Egypt Green Building Council.

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They were joined by Interface Flor’s Neel Bradham for an IFI panel discussion entitled ‘The impact of sustainability on design & innovation’. Farah’s very simple definition of sustainability: “To meet our needs without compromising the ability of future generations of meeting theirs”, reiterated the very human nature of the debate.

Speakers at the IFI Congress also heralded in an era of greater pragmatism. “As architects, we are obsessed with the image of a building and not necessarily the performance of that building,” highlighted Daniel Holguin, founder of Multiplicities.

The emphasis should be on crafting spaces that will enhance the user experience and evoke a genuine emotional response. “You can only create a successful guest experience and social spaces if you know how you want your customers to feel,” highlighted Bob Puccini in a presentation entitled ‘Enhancing the dining experience: the F&B philosophy’.

The importance of pragmatism was also reiterated by Sebastian Conran, who insisted that: “One of the key things designers can do is interpret and harness technology to make it accessible to human beings”, in a presentation entitled ‘The design business’.

A more ‘human’ ethos is perhaps also evident in the current ‘feminisation’ of design. Victoria Redshaw, CEO of UK-based trend forecasting company, Scarlet Opus, drew attention to the move away from hard, masculine lines, towards softer, more curvaceous designs, in a series of presentations during Index. “The future’s female,” she insisted.

But this softening of design is not synonymous with a simplification of design, Redshaw maintained, highlighting the trend towards ‘simplexity’. “Simplexity is a new design ethos,” she explained. “It is simplicity layered with complexity”.

One of the overriding messages highlighted during both Index and the IFI Congress was that the current economic climate has created a series of new and exciting opportunities for designers, particularly in this region. “Everyone has been focusing on the top end of the market, which means that there is a lot of potential for those that are able to service other market niches,” Ivar Krasinski, principal, Burt Hill, pointed out. “There is plenty of opportunity for segments that have been under-served.

“Companies can no longer just rely on an over-abundance of detail and cost per m² to prove themselves. Our job is not to go over the top but to create effective experiences,” he reiterated.

“It’s the time of the underdog,” Holguin suggested. “Clients can no longer afford the Zahas and the Franks. It’s an opportunity for younger designers. It’s time for a new chic, a new rawness.”

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