"At a lesson in Scuola Italiana Design (SID) I moved: I felt to have control of my future" - An interview with Davide Daminato

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) November 30, 2011 -- 1. Name and Last name?
Davide Daminato.

2. Name of the project?
Plot – a day repositionable hanging restraining complements system for both home and office (designed together with Stefano Traverso for Flai).

3. Your best own value?
Patience.

4. Your “best” own fault?
Patience!

5. Favorite movie/book/software/genre?
My tastes never coincide with genres and/or categories choosen by marketing to list audiovisual and literary products... I watch and read everything.

However, the last film that was very interesting to me was “Inception”, written and directed by Christopher Nolan; the last book was “Eleven Minutes” by Paulo Coelho; but, the only software I trust and I always use (although as an aid to my computer ones) is the operative system of my brain...

6. Journey still to make?
So many...

7. Where do you live and work now?
I live and work in Scorzè - “very close to Venice, a city I’m in love with” - I’m lucky to have about 150 square meters of creative space.
Vivo e lavoro a Scorzè - “molto vicino a Venezia, città di cui sono innamorato” - ho la fortuna di avere a disposizione circa 150 metri quadrati di spazio creativo.

8. When did you graduate at SID?
Master 2004-05.

9. Is there a story at SID you remember with pleasure?

A short introduction: when I joined SID I was already thirty, with a lot of different working experiences, but I found that among them there was a lowest common denominator, each of them winked somehow at the industrial design; I decided to put together my past experiences and use them to start a new exciting job: the designer. I felt the need to get back into the game with and begun a new profession that would help me in creating the world where I live.

The story: I enrolled in this design school instinctively, but during one of those many lessons, where both knowledge and passion were transmitted, a strong emotion, hard to describe, began to rise in me:

happiness and surprise at the same time, I felt I was in the right place at the right time, I was listening to the lesson and at some point - I tried to hide it - when everybody was simply taking notes, I... I moved... I had goose bumps, the room seemed surreal to me, deformed and blurred, as a transparent image with the shape of a cone where just the teacher and his eyes lit with passion remained in focus... I felt as an external presence of that cone embracing everyone... I wasn’t under the influence of any strange substance, it was just big tears of joy because I felt the ENERGY to have control of my future.
It was no difficult for me to work and attend SID at the same time, because it was a choice of mine, but since that moment I had the confirmation that I had to give all by myself in these studies and job; I already did it, but since that day I gained really a plus.

10. Scuola Italiana Design for you... in three words!
A great project.

11. A word of advice to those who are experiencing the school now?

Ethics and Responsability: two values never to be forgotten, you truly have to believe you can make a valuable contribution to the quality of life of many people.
The designer is a young profession, the world of work knows it just a little both in skills and in the potential, so get ready to bang your head against thick walls built by a lot of myopia.
However, there’s a driving force of energy that will lead you where you want: the driving force of the Passion, of your desire to Emotion, Wonder and Knowledge.

12. A provocative question: why is your project more beautiful that others?

Well I didn’t expect this question: I think that we cannot define a project better than another, I think it’s a relationship we don’t need to analyze because the concept of beauty is subjective while every industrial project is developed for the whole community.
I could talk about the difference between the aesthetic of our project and another one... but I answer: “beauty is subjective, function is always present, change is a need” (could be a great commercial for Plot System).

13. What is it? Tell us like we don’t know anything at all.

“Do you know those parallelepiped pieces of furniture you hang on the wall just after you made a couples of holes for each element? Image you have several and different pieces on the wall of your home (but in this case the holes on the wall are less than a half) and you want to move and reposition them every time you want without making new holes and filling the old ones; you can just move the accessories as easily as moving armchairs and sofas to change the arrangement in the room”... MAGIC? No, just method, a bit of talent and great passion.

14. And now, describe it again trying to convince us to buy in up to ten words.
It’s a story if you read again has a final always different.

15. How did you get the idea to develop this project?
It was a bet, we had to deliver to Flai (the manufacturer) a project of restyling of an old woodwork complements system, but at the same time we decided to add something new. The result: Flai set aside the old system and replace it with our new proposal.

The inspiration, or rather the idea, came to as soon as I saw in a magazine the radiator Square designed by Palomba for Tubes: a casing very clean and minimal, used as a towel warmer, horizontally across a thin and monochromatic heating surface hanging on the wall. That casing gave us the idea that became the innovative strenght of the project Plot compared to other complements system: it was the starting point to project the possibility to move furniture easily, reposition at will at any time and recompose it in a new configuration.

16. Have you dedicated it to someone?
Not officially, but in my mind I’m immensely grateful to my family because helped me to pursue my dream of becoming a designer. I take this opportunity to dedicate this award to my family, because they’ve always shared my passion and my professional life change since the decision to enroll (already 30 years old) to Scuola Italiana Design.

17. How do you feel to be in the top 40 SID designers 1991-2011?
It’s a great pleasure, I’ve already had very unexpected rewards:

- Fart Neon Group award of the contest “Idee per la luce” in 2005;
- special mention of the contest “Young & Design” in 2008;
- several editorials including one related to a tensile structure stand I designed for Primaluce Venezia: a self-supporting structure with a swinging arc 16 meters long which extended a long fireproof sail... designed just to be mounted a few hours at the fair in Frankfurt in 2008;

...but I got the best award from Scuola Italiana Design, the school where I started to dream of the great satisfaction, and over all from the people that teach me with such a passion that fueled even mine.

18. Your next project?
Many...
- the design of a Pilates Centre;
- the artistic direction of a company that produces bio-fireplace without a chimney;
- a new multimedia projectos with new automatisms and features;
- a pellet stove that outperforms the heating market for aesthetic, safety and positioning;
- internal and external partitions made of hand-cast glass elements;
- the restoration of a house in a rural area near Venice...


19. Almost at the end: where are you going at the end of this interview?

Well it’s 3 am… so I stay here… in bed.

20. A quote to close in effect?
The quality of life, at least for those aspects we can determine, is mainly based on the quality of the work done by each of us (Enzo Mari).

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