By Design: Ilse Crawford

[Music] welcome to the second series of by design my name is bruce baucher and i'm director of sir johnson's museum son's idea for his museum was to be an academy of the arts where art architecture and design could be discussed explored and celebrated it's with this in mind that we have collaborated with luke irwin the distinguished rug designer who feels passionately about the role of design and whose support has been fundamental to this series chaired by alice roththorne design writer and critic and will gompertz artistic director at the barbican these talks explore the impact of design on several internationally renowned designers and you can find podcasts of the first series on our website sone.org for this second series we invited dan pearson ilsa crawford erdem moraleo lou amanda levite and philip de barlow to present an object that has inspired them and through that object to reflect on their own design practice we originally launched the second series in february 2020 with alice roththorne talking to the designer dan pearson at the zone and we're pleased to present the remaining talks through a series of individual events filmed at the museum thanks to our collaboration with luke irwin we are not charging for these talks but be wonderful if you would consider making a contribution which would enable us to continue our wider learning programs and you can do so on zone.org i hope you enjoyed the talk ilsa crawford is one of our most influential designers who has championed a humanistic approach to design to foster our well-being individually and collectively ilsa pioneered sustainable and nurturing design first as founding editor of el decoration uk magazine and then by beginning the man on wellbeing program at design academy eindhoven in the netherlands where she taught for 20 years in 2003 she opened studio elsa a multi-disciplinary design practice in london where she and her team have pursued a humanistic approach to interior design and develop sustainable products for ikea and other brands so ilsa welcome and in the grand tradition of by design talks the stone museum has invited you to choose one object that you find particularly inspiring so what is it and why did you choose it um maybe inspiring is um pushing it but it's certainly a metaphor i think for our profession so i have chosen a tape measure so long as it works it doesn't really matter what type it is and i think i probably lost more tape measures than i can count but what i love about the tape measure is it is the reality of what we all as designers do and i've got a fantastic quote from louis khan here which is you know he talks about how design the making of things is a measurable act and you know underneath it all that is true but underneath that is the truth that a a great or even a good building must begin with the unmeasurable must go through the measurable in the process of design but must again in the end be unmeasurable so i think the tape measure in some way embodies that sort of contradiction in design that it is a process that is granular and rational and needs to be communicated but in the end what we are making is values that become visible through the process of design so how did you discover design and why did you decide to devote your working life to it um i think design discovered me to be honest i don't think i was really aware of design as a profession i grew up as the sort of product i would say of a very measurable man an economist and a totally unmeasurable woman who studied art at chelsea school of art and thought nothing of throwing five kids um behind her and hitchhiking to the other end of the country to see a michael powell movie if she thought we should see it so as you can imagine there were plenty of rows but i came to understand both points of view and in some ways i think design is the marriage of that and you have had an eclectic background um a journalist founding editor of el deco and also a long commitment to teaching as well as your own design practice so what have you learned from those other strands in your career i think that we are all the sum of our experiences and in many ways journalism and you know you were one still are one in a way but in different media um is a fantastic profession i mean it's really an opportunity i think to interrogate um to understand to gain insights to then communicate that to a bigger audience so it's a extraordinary training i think in understanding the world and making sense of it and i think that design is the next step from that actually it's a natural step of making those values visible and in some ways whether it's small or large by doing that encouraging others to do the same being a catalyst if you like for change so did you find your journalistic experience and also your experience as an editor and you were a hugely successful editor at el deco have they been practically useful in your work and design and also in your teaching i would say 100 yes because i think those skills that i just mentioned of interrogation and insight and imagination and communication are useful across the board and i think they help you understand subject matters so in teaching for example unpacking subject matters and going on that journey with the students looking at them from all angles looking at them from the data perspective looking at them from the human perspective from the social perspective etc i think it's a fantastic training to have for teaching and the same for design i mean with every project we start with that process of research and understanding before remotely starting on a design response to that that process of looking at the systems behind things that looking at the context that looking at the cause and effect of what we might do is you know transformational it really changes your perspective and similarly how did your teaching feed into your understanding of design and your practice teaching is a remarkable profession in that you are by definition acting as a coach to the next generation and i think you know you're not teaching them anything per se in my opinion but i think you are [Music] clarifying their processes giving them a sounding board really to develop their arguments and pointing them in good directions to find information data inspiration and so on so i mean it's a amazing way to in a shared um safe place i would say explore ideas that will impact the future that will be the future together and why did you decide to set up your own design practice um i didn't really decide to set up my own design practice i am very much a worker i roll my sleeves up i get on with stuff and i had set up as a freelancer and was working and one day in my accountant said that i had to register for vat so i should probably call myself something and it kind of rolled from there it rolled from the practice of work and you know we became official in 2003 but really it has been a consequence of doing the work rather than an intentional i'm going to set up a design studio so what were the milestones of studio ilsa we got bigger very slowly i would say the first seven years or so we were you know working from a small apartment there were five or six of us um and we worked on the early soho house project which is probably something we're quite well known for defining the dna of that brand in the very early days with badminton soho house electric etc bigger projects started to come our way and more diverse projects so that led to us growing basically quite organically when you look back i suppose it's always much easier to look back at him i think was a defining project i think working with esop was a defining project the ikea collection as you earlier mentioned was a defining project but we did many many other projects alongside that you know maybe a slightly less well-known and you learn through doing so in a way every one of them for us at least was defining very tactful and how many people are you now and can you give us an idea of the range of projects you're currently working on in terms of their scale the studio is currently around 15 people we have three teams and each team has a combination of architects interior designers that's ffa as they're known we also have product design and journalists working in the studio currently we have been working on a number of design strategies which i find really important because by addressing the beginnings of projects it's possible to embed humanistic values environmental values well-being values at the very beginning and that means that it's embedded in the budget it's in bled embedded in the planning submission it's embedded in the operational strategy that they have so that means there's far more chance of it surviving what is a very challenging process often over many years and what does studio ilsa stand for as you said at the beginning alice um we are um basically obsessed by the idea of embedding humanistic values into our projects whether they are environments products or even experiences and for us that means that we want to have a positive impact on mental and environmental outcomes it means we investigate the systems behind things it means we look into the context social cultural economic etc it means we anticipate cause and effect of any interventions we might make so it really is an approach that is looking at design as a way of squaring the circle if you like trying to join things together that previously been looked at in silos and currently this approach thankfully is increasingly fashionable these are core concerns for progressive private sector clients and for many young designers but you were championing well-being and this nurturing ethically and environmentally responsible approach designed long before it became popular is is it an easier sell now to to clients we are known for that and it is true increasingly the people who approach the studio come to us for that that doesn't mean though that it's always the case in the wider world and i think finding the right clients and doing that process together with those clients is still key i think that there are a lot of people who you know as they say want to go to heaven but don't want to die as one client said to us recently because we were pushing for obviously more sustainable sourcing but that cost 10 more so yeah you know there is that reality and i think there's a long way to go but i think that it's accelerating definitely so could we now look in detail at a couple of your projects you've chosen four of them to talk about so we can consider the thinking behind them and also how the finnish project reflects the values that are so important to you in the late 60s robbie kennedy famously said that talking about gdp that the problem with gdp was that it measured everything except that which makes life worthwhile and our aim with all our projects is to try to bring those two together as i've as i've said and i think the projects particularly the ones i'm going to talk about are always trying to bring together those soft values with something that works because obviously you know a project has to work one can't you have to you know it might be commercially it might be pragmatically those measurable values going back to the tape measure you know it has to work but it is possible i strongly feel to bring those together and i think it's how to do that with design that i think is what is so interesting and challenging i mean it is has certainly been true in recent years even more so than in the 60s that you know we idolize if you like hard and measurable financial value and very often talking about the more humanistic values is seen as being you know kind of fluffy it's something that we have to justify nowhere more so oddly i think than in you know the care sector and i think that's partly because it's often on very tight budgets and the so-called functional aspect of what needs to be done is so very very apparent caring professionally and care that respects a human's dignity that values individuals i think are sometimes very different um you know and i think that idea of embedding care at every level of a design makes it much easier for people using it for people working it to feel a part of an idea that i think can bring those sometimes contradictory values together so you know it's a truism that good design can help people feel good and valued but a project that we did recently um for referetory affiliates i think is a really good example of how that can work really really well referetoria felix was previously known as st cuthbert's which was a soup kitchen a really good one and run by people who did really care but the environment that they were working in was you know fairly puritanical it was an old church hall nothing wrong with it but pretty functional in the way that we understand that word and normally they teamed up with food for soul which is an ngo which in turn teamed up with project felix which is an ngo that works with food waste and pulled in studio ilsa to elevate the offer basically the brief was brilliant which was you know to bring dignity to the table we approached it by really thinking about the things that would create a community create a place where people wanted to hang out it was a completely different atmosphere because we focused on what would bring people together what would make them hang out so small micro details you might say you know plants um really good table top making the whole atmosphere comfortable in that sense of you know making people feel really at ease great chairs which vitra kindly donated beautiful lighting soft lighting beautiful colors it's about making places that we feel good in together bringing people together that was certainly clear from conversations i had with the clients one guy said when i asked him whether he thought it was you know frankly a bit silly so absolutely not you know the point is it shows that someone cares and the point is that it's a place they want to be together yeah and that comment about feeling that someone cares is heartbreaking and so important i think we have a tendency to um put things that we are uncomfortable with somehow in a box away you know away is something that i think we've specialized in in the past and i think all of these issues are our own issues and we need to use design to bring us together to build bridges rather than to divide and it is a great example of that so number two number two at hem which is a you know high-end hotel in stockholm it's 12 bedrooms everything is an opportunity i think to change perception everything's an opportunity to make values visible and typically i think those high-end hotels are really about visible signs of status if you like typically whatever that is whether it's money or you know culture or you know and that really overrides the sort of so-called humanistic um approach hem is in an arts and crafts building so 1910 and what we did was to take if you like the sort of very humanistic values of the arts and crafts movement and updated them so this idea of a sort of intense domesticity being the you know crowning achievement of human cultural endeavor which was very much the mantra we said that there should be no front or back of house and to be honest there wasn't really space for it either but you know we used the difficulty there so the hotel happens in front of your eyes i mean you know the flowers are arrive in front of you that you eat in the kitchen the laundry goes in and out in front of you it's you're really part of the staging of this entirety and the result has been extraordinary i mean it's a very lovely thing i mean it's very much based on its context so aesthetically it's very much based on the you know swedish way of life updated i would say um but the feeling that you get from the staff is fantastic it's really their place and you feel part of it and there's a mutual respect i think that happens because of the way that it works but that's designed it didn't happen by accident it was you know very intentional i have stayed there and it is as great as you're describing it the next one i'd love to talk about is actually not a design in the end it's a design strategy design strategy is such an important part of what we do anyway we always do it as part of our projects but we sometimes do it without doing the design because money is going to be frankly challenging for a lot of projects and they can't always afford to take design right the way through to the end i mean it's desirable but you know sometimes you have to think of other ways of doing it oftentimes a very good plan can get you an extremely long way i mean it's definitely better than not having a plan one project that we have worked on in that way collaboratively is in hamburg and it's called the new institute and it's a quite interesting organization it's an ngo it's set in nine buildings in hamburg it's basically an institute for advanced studies and they call themselves a platform for change and they bring academics and practitioners so that's activists artists politicians together under nine roofs to analyze and then create plans for action to address the key issues of our time be it democracy environment the human condition etc so big issues but what's really fascinating is that they have this diversity of expertise that they bring together so they've currently got fellows from santa barbara in philosophy from berlin and economics from cambridge digital ethics from venice environment working together for you know sometimes over a year on specific topics and then engaging with activists and politicians and so on on these topics so we came in to figure out again how to de-institutionalize the institution how to create a building that in some way embodied these brand values and made it possible to have a space that if you like embodied democracy inspired hope created the conditions for these people to work together and very different people obviously very different skill sets some measurable some really less measurable all together under one roof and the interesting thing about doing this strategy was also by just touching bricks and mortar you start to have to define the brand values initially of course the ambition was always in place but a word that had fallen to the bottom of the list in fact i'm not even sure if it was even on the list was care and in fact now that is the core value for the building is care for each other care for the projects that they're working on care really as a value that can bring society together and heal in many cases issues that badly need addressing so fascinating the design strategy ended up influencing the core values of the organization in terms of its debate and debates as well as um more functional design outcomes because i think once you start to make things real the blindingly obvious becomes obvious but actually when you're looking at things theoretically and especially with the sort of heritage of language that we've been discussing those words seem kind of weak you know when you're talking about the idea of you know democracy and big words um but in the end none of those bigger concepts stand a chance if you don't care the last example is product and i think while you know we are talking about carpets or tables or benches it seems maybe you know not um on the same scale of impact perhaps for some of the projects that i've mentioned but i think they really are because the interesting thing about small projects is they can be copied manufacturing production ultimately is about systems and that's i think what's so fascinating about engaging with a company that makes things a company called xanat that's based in bosnia not far from sarajevo and that's run by a former world bank guy called orhan nichik and he set it up precisely to address the issue of not enough jobs there's been a you know absolutely massive exodus of young men from bosnia because there's obviously nothing doing since the horribleness of the wars there and ohan wanted to address that directly so he wanted to build on um the carving skills that have been a part of bosnian culture for many generations he had them registered as or pushed to get them registered it's not his gift as an intangible cultural heritage by unesco and commissioned designers to make designs that would make those skills relevant for today and not just relevant but viable because in his words he says it's important that young bosnians see a better future in their country and a future in craft but it's essential that they are commercially successful and that's why he works with design so you know you really have a responsibility to come up with something that in some way integrates those skills but is not only valuing those skills but also you know creating value for xanat and we worked on a project with them called touch which is a series of benches and tables and now smaller pieces but i think what's what is really interesting is orhan says that it's not just in fact a question of bosnia and its specific needs that if you think of what's going to happen in the world as a consequence of automation you know if you get the example of how in america they're probably going to use around 50 of manual jobs that thinking about design in terms of labor-intensive jobs like that that requires skills is actually something that designers really need to start to consider indeed so an incredible range of projects that have enabled you to have a social economic political and ecological impact as you wish and then of course then came covid19 so could you talk first about how it affected your working practice in the studio design being very much a team operation and studio also being a very discursive um and communicative design studio how has it affected your ways of working and how have you adapted we were very lucky in that we were working on a number of design strategies when covert struck and that it was something that you could continue to do although um we did have one client who and poor chap he's never going to be allowed to forget it boldly said i've got balls of steel balls of steel so we're going to get through this but six months later he was definitely feeling that while we could get through this building in the end if you're going to do it well requires physical presence so certainly while it has been possible to continue virtually um i think what we've all appreciated now is just how important physical contact is for creativity for tactility for imagination and in the studio going forwards i am currently turning it on its head and we are going to have a space that's more workshop than office i would say um and has you know prioritizes different spaces for human contact rooms but also you know space for tech basically so we can communicate virtually but the workshop the physicality of what we do is going to be you know front and foremost the other thing that it has made us appreciate and navigate is working hours because obviously it's been catastrophic for mothers home schooling and a full-time job or a nightmarish combination and so that has made us you know try to figure out every which way how to create uh better working hours if you like that work for everyone including clients going forwards so that's been you know challenging but i think really great to have to wrap one's head around i mean bottom line it's been an accelerant i think to understand what really matters about our work and how to make it work better for clients and for our team indeed and can we look at the broader context of the impact of this tragic and anguishing pandemic on design culture in general and whether it's also been an accelerant in terms of raising awareness of the importance of different issues in design i think that there's no question that it has been i mean every job that is coming through the door right now has some element of social awareness cultural and sustainability awareness etc and you know that was happening anyway but it's it is definitely more the norm than before so i think that is great because designers can't do it on their own i mean you are part of a team and you need a client basically you can educate your client up to a point but they need to want to go where you're taking them i think that designers are essentially optimists and utopians and we're in a time where those values are more needed than ever and that those skills will be called upon you can't pretend it's going to be easy i think money is going to be very um short and budgets will be cut or at least there won't be any flexibility in them so we're going to have to be extremely smart about how we connect with our projects and there are going to be bad times i mean you know there's definitely been times over the last year where i've been sort of weeping into my laptop it's you know you sometimes feel like you're hanging on by your finger fingertips and and you know then it comes around so i think it's about keeping the faith hanging on in there as well and so final question what are your plans for the future um i think we want to continue essentially to do projects where we make values visible because in the end what's interesting about design is that by making things real it shows an alternative reality no matter how small like a zanette or a nanny it shows it can be done that it is possible because reality is not a fixed thing i mean it sounds so obvious to us but you know it doesn't seem to be to everyone be realistic you know it's something people say all the time but actually i want to finish on in fact that wonderful david grober quote that the adam curtis documentaries flagged but there isn't a better one that the ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we could just as easily make differently well you're doing it beautifully tough though it has clearly been at times so ilse thank you so much for giving us such an inspiring and also realistic picture of a designer who has succeeded in combining commercial success with integrity while changing design culture thank you thank you for watching if you enjoyed the talk it would be great if you would consider making a contribution which would enable us to continue our wider educational programs and you can do so on zone.org we appreciate your support and look forward to welcoming you back to the zone again soon

Channel: SoaneMuseum

Views: 2,428

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Length: 37min 23sec (2243 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 28 2021