Alberto Meda

About

Alberto Meda belongs to the rare engineer/designer category that integrate technical requirements with a poetic dimension resulting in objects that are surprisingly personal and pleasurable. Emerging as an engineer, Alberto Meda is now widely appreciated as a designer through his fusion of art and science, technical innovation and formal virtuosity, all of which characterizes the essence of Italian design. Meda is acknowledged for his ability to use state-of-the-art industrial materials in ways that are visually stunning as well as structurally sound in a non-industrial context. By looking at his work, we can understand one of the faucets of innovation for Italian Design, where state of the art materials are synthesized through technology in visually stunning and delightful ways.

Interview Ideas

Design Process

Discover something that is a problem. In essence, find an unmet need.
Be conscious that the idea is the first step, and through the design process you will iteratively go in a cycle of “thinking” and “doing”. It is important to have the skill to start in one direction and go in another that you may not have originally planned. In the design process there will be many hints about the solution, which will then shift your process. To get a good result you have to constantly be open to experiment, test, and change.
Alberto Meda defines his process as “synthetic thinking” Start each project from an idea and not from a shape. An idea means that you have to solve something. The form will be found through the act of solving the problem.

The physical properties and form of an object results from the idea and the function which then influences the final result. As designers we have to be conscious that there are many possibilities to form an idea, and the choice of physicality we make influences a lot of the outcome.

As a designer, it is very important to judge and be critical by not only seeing, but also evaluating and designing with the other senses. As an example, a chair is about more than how it looks. More important than its appearance is how it feels when you sit in it.

Lightness and Simplicity

Alberto Meda utilizes lightness as a method of connecting an object with the environment and the user. Therefore there is value to lightness not only in a physical sense, but also visually.
Meda believes that people have a biological relationship with simplicity. A method of achieving “lightness” is to solve the complexity of integrating different functions; the relationship between different functions and parts of an object. The solution should almost seem organic because of the relationship between different functions is all integrated into one.

Italian Design

The success of Italian design is because of the network between the designer and manufacturer.
However, by the eighties and nineties, there was a drunkenness of new things.
Design is now in a strange period. There is a lot of confusion and everything is design, which is terrible. Design has lost many important issues and the result is now often a question of goods, rather then ideas.
It will now be interesting to see how designers react to a real global problem - globalization and the survival of the environment. Meda believes we have to reconsider our basic needs and by doing this we will reinvent our thoughts.
The problem designers have is economics and also benefits. We have to find a way to fix problems and be economically sustainable.

Italian Design Education

In the past many Italian designers have been trained as architects. This was a more open system that allowed architectural theory and principles to influence a lot of other fields involving design.
Now on the other hand, design education is much more specialized. Communication and expression are significant skills taught in design educations and this is risky. The main problem is how to find an idea, not how to communicate. The energy of a designer needs to be spent on finding a legitimate idea, rather then the expression of one. Meda believes that design is currently looking for direction because it is still a new field, so we are responsible of finding the right path.

Role and Responsibility of Design

It is very important not to make an excess of unnecessary new things and make garbage for this world. For example, if you make a new lamp, this lamp has to solve a new problem or fill a need. Something to legitimate the act of making another lamp.
Technological advances in visualization have allowed tools to represent objects and spaces virtually but it is very important to understand the physicality of things.

Quality takes Time

Meda emphasizes that it is critical to ensure quality throughout the design process - from the ideation to the manufacturing of the product. There is an inherent value embedded in Italian culture that emphasizes a quality of life as well as quality in work. It can be seen in many aspects of Italy such as the food and environment. This value can also be distinguished in Italian design and it separates their design from that of other cultures. One of the terminologies we use to describe the quality in how Italians like to take their time to get the job done right and let things sink in and find their place is “slowness”.
Although the world is drastically changing and global culture places value in speed, Meda states that it is very important to take things slowly in order to allow quality to develop. There is a possibility to innovate in this way, and Italian design has been doing it for decades. An example of China is given has Meda illustrates how a model of “slowness” could have eliminated disasters such as the pollution in China due to how fast they have moved and industrialized.

Video/Key Quotes

What We Learned

Alberto Meda clearly illustrates that design is an iterative process that focuses on the user. Meda always starts his process by having an idea first, to design a solution to a problem. Technology is not a feature, but rather a tool that is used as part of an organic design process that is never a straight line. After the interview, it was evident what the term “visual lightness” means for Meda. His belief that people are drawn to simple objects, that there is a biological relationship between simplicity, nature, and people has resulted in investigations into simple and beautiful looking objects. With his engineering background Meda is able to create incredible form to structure relationships in his designs.

The past few projects for Alberto Meda have dealt with large issues such as sustainability and overpopulation, such as “Water” and “Solar Bottle”. When asked about this topic Meda responds that sustainability is an opportunity to create new habits for Italy as well as globally. He states that it is important not to make so many new things and make new garbage for the world. Rather, we are now in a new phase where we can utilize technology and research in a different way. Unless there is a new situation, or technology to test, an object needs to solve a legitimate problem or desire because there is almost a drunkenness in design and objects. A habit we talked about was embedding the Italian quality of “slowness” as an ideology in design and culture. We do not need to adapt to the current global value of speed but instead keep quality of life by taking things slowly.

Speaking about Italian design education, Meda points out that the education system is in the infancy stage and will take some time to figure out how the effects of the current specializations in design will affect the industry. Meda’s view on education is not that students are coming out of bad schools, but the challenge for designers is finding a new idea and education to provide the tools to teach the skill. Over time we will be able to assess the situation but currently it is too early. This kind of patience is a virtue of Alberta Meda’s that we can all learn from.