Material Tendencies: Giulio Iacchetti

Architonic caught up with the Italian designer to find out which material he would chose if asked to work with just one for the next three years.

Giulio Iacchetti: At this moment I think wood is the material with the most possibilities. Wood is the world’s most ancient material. It is highly versatile and therefore offers maximum freedom during the design process.

Is there any material that you could immediately reject?

Yes, those types of materials that are defined as innovative and futuristic. They disappear in a relatively short space of time. It seems that designers are supposed always to be keen on these new materials that have just emerged out of some research process. But normally they are very expensive and we cannot prove their performance over the years. I think that materials need to be verifiable, because we are making projects that should last for several epochs – or at least this should be our target.

At what point within the design process do you decide in favour of a specific material?

I would say that at the very beginning it is important to get familiar with the characteristics and technological features of the material itself in order to understand how to proceed with the project. Not all projects go well with all materials. Therefore we need to carefully consider the material before evaluating the first steps of a project. Sometimes the material determines the direction of the design process. At the end of the day I think it is very important to enter the heart of the company that you do a project for in order to understand its needs.