Giugiaro Design is the industrial and transport design division established in 1981.
WOW! interviews Mr. Giorgetto Giugiaro, present Chairman of the Company.
Is the planning model of Giugiaro Design the same everywhere in the world and with all kinds of companies or design products or does the approach change to the different situations?
Giugiaro Design is the industrial design division of Italdesign Giugiaro. The approach is always the same and is the outcome of the nearly fifty-year experience gained in the car design field. From the very first stroke we draw, we aim at planning an ergonomic object, feasible and creative, as well, of course.
Giugiaro Design operates on quite different markets (car to kitchen, office to electrical appliance, camera to tile, transports…). Do the analyses for these projects show the users have now new life styles and new requirements?
The life style evolves and changes at a stunning speed. It’s a repeating circle: new needs lead to new products, that change our life style, and in its turn creates new needs … On the one hand, technology is affecting those sectors, that seemed to be immune a few years ago: just think about home automation, smartphones, and cars, of course. On the other hand the search for comfort and ergonomics is constant and increasingly present. Quality cannot be renounced and we must combine intuition, feasibility and innovation with intelligence.
Are there any conceptual “contaminations” and common elements between the many design areas Giugiaro Design deals with?
Yes, absolutely, I think that contamination is necessary and useful, as well as inevitable. But contamination also comes from all round us, art, nature, architecture.
How has the office vision changed in the past few years? (from the Contessa Chair to the new Sabrina Chair?) and have these changes an impact on the new products?
We spend most of our time in the office. Ergonomics is an increasingly essential requirement on designing an object. And technology helps to find groundbreaking and effective solutions, like an easier handling of the seating, to conform with instinctive movements.
What scenarios and evolutions do you expect for the office and the ways of working in the near future?
We foresee a further evolution towards a simplified form of the objects, yet with heavily technological contents. Quality, sustainability, innovative materials and applications, timeless style and reliability will play the lord and master.
To what extent is the integration of technologies, devices and fittings in the automotive industry required, to make the use of the car as “working environment” more comfortable and widespread?
No doubt the automotive industry is one of the most contaminated, and in its turn it has infected the world of technology. If the look of cars has been basically the same for decades, the actual revolution took place in their interior. Now the city cars have outfits that twenty years ago were the prerogative of flagships as far as safety and infotainment are concerned. While high-end cars are close to an office or a residence, some models are even supplied with a TV set and Wi-Fi connection!
Photocover: Sabrina the new chair produced by Okamura.
Wich is the more interesting and innovative product design by Giorgetto Giugiaro?
