Dear Things
Inside the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano’s Design Friction Lab (image: Gerhardt Kellermann)
What is the object that you hold most dear? Mine is a racing bike. It is beautiful, no doubt, but that’s not what makes it special. What makes it unique is that I built it myself – or, to be precise, I built it with my friend Simon, who knew how to do it and showed me. He helped me along the way, but still made room for me to make mistakes and, therefore, learn. When I finally rode the bike for the first time, I experienced a joy I hadn’t felt in years.
DIYR, a new collection of “social electronics” that includes fans, modular lamps and speakers, coupled with coat racks and hangers, promises to gift people a similar feeling. Pronounced “dear”, the collection’s acronym stands for “Do It Yourself Revolution”. These products, conceived by the Design Friction Lab of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, aren’t sold anywhere, but exist originally as instructions. They only become things when built – and customised – by people. DIYR objects are colourful but not shouty, transparent about the technology they carry, clearly understandable, and therefore repairable.
While the tools used to assemble the products are easy to find (multimeters, drills, handsaws, etc) and most of the components are standardised, some parts are 3D-printed, such as hinges and bases – and it is these that often give the objects character. To create them, the designers encourage people to go to a local fabrication laboratory (fablab) or order them online. All the instructions and 3D-model files are published on the internet under a Creative Commons licence that allows for reproduction and customisation, except when it comes to commercial use.
The project’s website tells me that “DIYR is here to empower You to do and to imagine. To take action and assume responsibility by doing yourself and contributing [to] the much-needed shift in the relations with the objects around you, with the industry, society and the environment.” And I do indeed feel energised, especially given that I actually need a floor lamp for my studio.
Today, however, I won’t be hitting the hardware store, but am instead meeting Nitzan Cohen, the mind behind DIYR and the Design Friction Lab. After graduating from Design Academy Eindhoven in 2002, Cohen worked with the Siemens-Mobile Designlab and Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design, before leaving to found his Munich-based studio in 2007. There, he produced a series of one-off objects and spaces, as well as partnering with design brands such as Mattiazzi on industrially produced furniture and products. Since 2015, however, Cohen has been less active within commercial design, focusing instead on education and research after having been appointed dean of the Faculty of Design and Art at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.
Since having closed his studio in Munich, Cohen now operates primarily through the Design Friction Lab, a research platform he founded at the university to operate at the “intersection of science and the industry”, and raise questions around the sustainability of design practice. As we prepare to speak over Zoom about DIYR and Cohen’s ambitions for the project, I realise that I want to know more about the values embodied by the Lab and its approach towards design. “As a decision-based practice stimulating the realisation of equitable common goods for people and the planet,” the Lab’s website states, “design is applied thinking in the infinitive: where to?”
Silvio Lorusso Nitzan, you’re the dean of the Faculty of Design and Art at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. How would you describe the “vibe” of the faculty?
Nitzan Cohen With 350 students, our faculty is a relatively small one. It’s not an art academy, but an actual university, where Italian academic standards apply. However, among the faculties in our university, ours is the odd one out. In a way, we had to create our own reality. We have substantial resources and incredible workshops here, and this is part of the character of the faculty – we are not only busy with rendering things, but also with making them. At the same time, we have been nourishing a conceptual framework: our students need to figure out the “how”, but just as much the “why” in design and art. I would say it’s this kind of duality that makes the faculty unique, and shapes my role as dean. At times, I have to deal with different voices and their dissonances: I have to be able to talk to both the inside and the outside of the faculty.
Silvio This notion of dissonance calls in an important concept for your lab, that is, “design friction”. I’m reminded of a 2019 article by Anja Groten (founder of the Hackers & Designers network), in which she argues that “[friction] describes a moment of resistance in which two elements (people or objects) encounter each other and create a new condition”. On the other hand, you characterise it as being a counterpart of “Design Fiction”, and therefore as a form of disobedience to the expectations of the market. What does it mean to disobey?
“Our students need to figure out the “how”, but just as much the “why” in design and art.”
Nitzan Disobeying means acting in a subversive way, which is not meant to harm but to instigate. It’s like in the old poem ‘The Road Not Taken’. Our work asks: what if we take the less travelled road instead? This involves developing projects through various stages, and taking into account the broader context of the entire endeavour.
Silvio It’s a bit like that meme where a person, instead of following the prescribed path (Design), takes the shortest, most reasonable one (User Experience)...
Nitzan Following the prescribed paths, both reasonable and unreasonable ones, won’t get us far. We would end up with a dull future. But if we start with a fictional scenario, then we can start to explore multiple, more interesting possibilities.
Silvio Is there a relationship between the work of the Design Friction Lab and some of your more paradoxical earlier products such as the Iso_Isolator, a somewhat unsettling tower of glass shelves whose trolley wheels were placed such that it couldn’t be pushed or pulled?
Nitzan That object was about combinations. We are always combining information to make sense of things because that’s how our minds work. We see four legs and a flat surface – it’s a chair. This is also how we protect ourselves: we combine information to understand if something is a threat. The Iso_Isolator messes with our expectations. What is it, really? Is it a shelf? It has wheels, and each one can roll, but not all together, so they don’t work.
Silvio You can’t really figure out what to do with it. It’s a dilemma.
Nitzan Yes. It’s humorous but, at the same time, it explores aspects related to functionality, our perception of it, and the necessity to align our understanding with what we consider logical.
Silvio Whereas the Iso_Isolator could fit well in one of David Cronenberg’s films, the InnoCell Bioreactor, a project developed by the Design Friction Lab, brings to mind a less shadowy type of science fiction. What is it about?
Nitzan The bioreactor’s original seed was the bachelor thesis project of Emma Sicher, a student of mine. She was looking at the possibility of packaging SCOBY matter [“symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast”], which is generally used to make kombucha tea. We’re based in South Tyrol, which is Europe’s largest apple-growing region. Hence, there’s a lot of processing of apples. We realised that discarded apples, at any processing step, have exactly the same amount of sugar as fresh apples, and sugar is what drives the fermentation process. The first goal of the project was to define the optimal recipe for SCOBY to grow from discarded apples. This recipe has a generally positive effect on our digestion, unlike standard SCOBY based on plain sugars.
“Following the prescribed paths, both reasonable and unreasonable ones, won’t get us far. We would end up with a dull future.”
Silvio DIYR, meanwhile, is an ecosystem of electronic devices that the user can “build, hack, personalize, share, fix, and forever keep”. Can you tell me a bit about the collection?
Nitzan I’ve long been fascinated by do-it-yourself. A number of years ago, Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin commissioned me to do a DIY project for their weekend magazine. I came up with a wall clock where I only designed the hour hand. This was something that people could easily 3D print. It was quite playful and made me wonder about the possibilities of such techniques. After that, I really wanted to do a mobile phone. I thought that it would be so cool to design a DIY mobile phone and realise it.
Silvio Something close to Fairphone, or Mathijs van Oosterhoudt’s open-source camera?
Nitzan Exactly. But in the end, I didn’t have the means. So, I focused on the gap between components and final products, considering that you can easily and cheaply buy parts and build sophisticated products in a relatively straightforward way, adding an extra emotional value that comes from personalisation.
Silvio Ten years ago, it seemed that 3D printers were on the verge of bringing about a “third industrial revolution”, as it was dubbed by Jeremy Rifkin. This was part of the narrative fuelling the so-called maker movement. Did you believe in that promise?
Nitzan On the one hand, there are almost 6,000 fablabs around the world; it’s an impressive knowledge-sharing network. On the other hand, when we look at what they’re actually producing, it becomes more difficult, as there’s a lot of nonsense and waste. A lot did not evolve as people predicted or hoped for, but I still see an incredible potential in providing fablabs with a kind of multi-layered recipe book. This is what we are trying to do with DIYR, where people ask: “Where is the store?” But there is no store.
Silvio Perhaps tech journalists and commentators were asking a bit too much from fablabs, anointing them with a world-changing aura. Somehow, it was like asking a copy shop to carry out the revolution.
Nitzan These are really the questions tackled by digital fabrication experts like Stefano Maffei. That said, things still need to happen, and DIYR is one of them, since it’s offering something that fablabs don’t have at the moment. It’s not the answer, but a small building block in furthering the idea of diffused manufacturing.
Silvio My favourite objects in the collection are the speakers. I think this has to do with their sense of fragility (they literally shake) and transparency (you can see the naked amplifier board). They are a bit like Daniel Weil’s 1981 “Bag” Radio.
“One of our challenges was: how do you communicate that there are endless possibilities?”
Nitzan In designing them, we tried to ignore all the pre-existing speaker designs and go all the way with them. As designers, we are somehow programmed to think in the industry’s terms, so we had to remind ourselves that, no, we can do it differently and focus on how we would really like to use the product, as well as being able to repair it. In this sense, transparency becomes accessibility. Naked is beautiful. There are many fantastic references to that idea, as well as how we relate to the objects we use, like a Bang and Olufsen stereo system from 1993 where you swipe your hand, the doors open and you can insert the CD. It’s beautiful but also a little bit absurd, like Naoto Fukasawa’s wall-mounted CD player for Muji, which was very intuitive. At the time, for me, that was mind-blowing. Another inspiration for us was Teenage Engineering, which makes these super-funky devices for making music. I really appreciate the logic behind them: there is something raw and punk about using technology that way.
Silvio DYIR products have a clear identity – they aren’t stylistically neutral. The colour palette and materials make me think of Memphis and Alchimia. Is this a way to make technology more human or “warm”?
Nitzan Obviously, you can’t design without giving a shape. We wanted to be functional but also not shy, to give colour and be bold about it – to create something that looks new. One of our challenges was: how do you communicate that there are endless possibilities? This is almost a philosophical question, and a very important one for us.
Silvio Perhaps DIYR borrows less from the style of postmodern design than it does from its ethos, which promotes multiplicity and recombination. After all, other products in the collection, such as the fans, have an affinity with completely different works, like the kinetic and programmed art of collectives like Gruppo T or designers like Bruno Munari.
Nitzan Yes, we have many references. But in the end, what really matters is that the objects make sense for themselves, and possess their own contemporary logic.
Silvio DIYR’s method of providing instructions and making use of readily available components has several precedents, like Enzo Mari’s 1974 Autoprogettazione? and Louise Brigham’s 1909 Box Furniture.
Nitzan The thing is, I really like instructions. I shouldn’t say it, but as a student I used to steal rescue instructions from airplanes, since I found them both beautiful and a bit ridiculous. Instructions are like Esperanto: when they work well everybody understands them, and that’s also good for manufacturers since they don’t need to translate them into every language. So, we looked at many types of instructions, including many YouTube videos.
“I’d be really happy if this would give the industry a kick in the balls. More than constituting a business model, DIYR is meant to challenge current business models.”
Silvio And wikiHow, with its iconic illustration style?
Nitzan Also Instructables. In our case, we had to communicate something complex but not complicated. In the end, we opted for illustrations, so that the style of the final products wouldn’t be fixed in photographs. Given the information they convey, I think we managed to make our instructions very, very compact.
Silvio But, to be honest, these instructions are not for everyone. Not everyone is into soldering or likes to handle thermal glue. Who’s the “implicit user” of DIYR?
Nitzan It’s true that DIYR might not be for everyone, but we should let go of stigmas and clichés. That said, I believe this could be very interesting for teenagers who are into techniques and technology. This could be one among many hobbies they develop in their young adult phase. And we should really de-gender technology! I hope DIYR can help.
Silvio And what about the business model? Are you considering ways to make money with this?
Nitzan We’re thinking about it, but for the moment the project is really open. I’d be really happy if this would give the industry a kick in the balls. More than constituting a business model, DIYR is meant to challenge current business models. If it becomes popular, it can manage to do so. The goal of this project is to make a difference, as naive as that may sound.
Silvio The description of DIYR on its website reads: “Glocal [global + local] networks of knowledge exchange are fostered while the economic interest of market and industry are undermined through design activism, self-production and a welcome appropriation of form and function.” The R in DIYR stands for “revolution”. Isn’t that too much, rhetorically speaking?
Nitzan This line might sound a bit presumptuous, but there is also a risk of being too dogmatic with the words we use, which can then limit different interpretations. Here in the faculty, for instance, I’ve had many discussions about activism. There is no single definition, especially for what we’re trying to do, which is both a political endeavour and the design of a brand. DIYR might not be the solution, but it is a way to be resolute about bringing about change.
Words Silvio Lorusso
Images: Gerhardt Kellermann
This article was originally published in Disegno #37. To buy the issue, or subscribe to the journal, please visit the online shop.