Friends: Giacomo Moor
Throught the eyes and ears of Luca A. Caizzi – who visited and interviewed Giacomo in his studio in Milan – we find out more about the man behind our latest kitchen and water treatment collection Thumb.
Interview by Luca A. Caizzi
Although I have read a lot of interviews about you, and so I am biased about your knowledge, if I had to ask you what suffix would suit you best, what would it be?
GM: Designer.
Time, in any design, plays a fundamental role. What time is Giacomo Moor living in this present?
GM: I think time is the least forgiving variable of all in the design profession. Taking the right time is fundamental; taking too much time can become lethal. My daily battle, both in my work for the studio and in my collaborations with companies, is precisely that of dosing time, trying to understand which is the right moment to slow down and which is the right moment to speed up. At the moment we are diversifying the studio’s activities a lot and we are also starting to deal with a larger scale, applying design criteria consistent with the road travelled so far.
What is your favourite moment in the studio? And why?
GM: The first few hours of the day are definitely the most productive because the studio is still quiet. I try to carve out moments when, in solitude, I can organise my work, free from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
If you had to explain what wood smells like, could you do it? And steel?
GM: Wood smells of a fairy tale, of dilated times, of history; steel of war, progress and speed.
How did the collaboration with QuadroDesign come about?
GM: Enrico is a friend and mutual esteem led us to build this collaboration. In the last two years I designed and engineered a collection of kitchens and the possibility to think of a tap that could coordinate was natural.
Thumb seems to be a simple, tactile object. How complex was it to design it?
GM: It was the first opportunity for me to design a tap and the idea on the one hand excited me on the other hand put some pressure on me. It helped me a lot right from the start to work on a series of three-dimensional models that forced me to interact directly with the object. It is a product that comes to life thanks to the user and this is the aspect I was interested in investigating. Thus Thumb was born.
How much did the human factor influence this design? How much the technological one?
GM: One of the most critical and at the same time interesting aspects was to try to give steel, a hard and cold material, a note of softness through a removal of material that would generate a soft and welcoming grip. The company’s technology and technical expertise allowed us to translate this requirement into shape.