Post-Spectacular Office: Design as narration
DS.WRITER:
Vasilis Xifaras
Image: Yiannis Drakoulidis
Design can be concerned with more than an object, a particular way of designing or a specific scale/size. This is proved by the projects of the Post-Spectacular Office, which, based in Thessaloniki, designs objects, spaces, publications and exhibitions, as narrations that float over a material and at the same time immaterial world. The name of the office demonstrates the dedication to meaning and narration and not to the surrounding spectacle, as theatrical as this may sound. The multifaceted design, combined with the use of a plethora of means, is the consistent, yet not strictly defined, method of design that the studio prefers. In fact, this design approach was appreciated by this year’s EBGE awards. Occasioned by the recently completed major project, the cafe-bar-restaurant Pelosof, an already favourite destination in Thessaloniki, we had the chance to converse with Post-Spectacular Office about everything that makes their design so unique.
Pelosof, 2021 | Image: Yiannis Drakoulidis
- In Pelosof, the void is what links, one by one, the tools of narration, whether they be huge plant pots, sculptural seats or handmade tiles on the walls. How did you end up with this idea for organising space?
This work was constructed by atmospheres that starkly differ from each other, yet they amounted to a unified result. The goal was to build the image of the work around visual binaries: ceramic sculpture and neon details, small glazed ceramic tessera and big volumes of textured plaster, colour condensations and surfaces that are awkwardly void of representations or processing. We attempted to apply this existence of binary elements to the general design by preserving old unprocessed parts of the building but closely juxtaposing intense design gestures, and also by giving the sense that interior and exterior spaces keep exchanging roles: using farmland materials as soft seating cushions, and materials for garden flooring as furniture surfaces. All the above balance through the existence of void as a connecting element that showcases and underlines the peculiar juxtaposition of objects. Already during our initial brainstorming, it was clear to us that the space must be organised into smaller areas, separating different functions and atmospheres, which range from familiar to unexpected. The design threshold of these worlds is the void and the frame created by the doorways in between areas.
Pelosof, 2021 | Image: Yiannis Drakoulidis
Pelosof, 2021 | Image: Yiannis Drakoulidis
- Minimal, Scandinavian, influenced by Bauhaus, representative, honest. How would you best describe your design? Do you incorporate local elements into it?
Referencing place, through broader cultural and morphological references and occasioned by the work’s context, is a starting point for us. Surely there are consistent references to movements, schools and trends from which we draw elements with no intention to censor but with a clear intention for these, often diverse, references to overlap, function together and create situations here and now. It is our aim that the resulting product is an unexpected concise amalgamation of all the primary images, knowledge and experiences of each member of our group.
- Narrativity plays a central part in configuring the concept. From where do you draw inspiration to develop this plot, and what is the role of the client’s personal story and will?
The configuration of a concept, a central idea for each project, is -in terms of methodology- one of the first phases of our design process. It is the starting point but also a design “compass” during the whole process that brings us back to the project’s desiderata if the range of decisions to be made becomes too vast. Narrative plays a central role in shaping the central idea, but not as a closed system, that is, not as a self-referential act of creating a narrative for the sake of the narrative, but as a dynamic, basic tool for the production of space and image. The personal stories and wishes of those who contact us are the starting point of the plot and are elements that are an important birthplace of images. That is where our own references, our own spatial and non-spatial desires settle. Inspiration comes in some way organically but also as a result of a specific methodology that we follow in the design process; it is not usually decoded easily at that moment, most of the time, retrospectively and after having some distance, we recognize the sequence of all the thoughts we had to form a certain composition.
Tectonic Plates, 2019 | Image: Post Spectacular Studio
- In the exceptional utensils “Tectonic Plates” free artistic forms are manifested as flat surfaces, ideal for providing a meal with a landscape. In general, how do you go from design to tangible object?
The expressionistic depiction, in two-dimensional design as well as in the three-dimensional object, is a part of the design process that keeps us connected with arbitrary gestures. Even though, on one hand, we can not part with the dynamic design details of the mechanisms of construction, on the other hand, liberated portrayal opens a passage to directions that are not influenced by details and can imbue what we call atmospheres with the power of totality. The amorphous platters, the half-moon door handles and the chairs with rhythmless curved backs like mountaintops are some examples of objects that by being three-dimensional, underline their two-dimensional origins. They are also a return to the primordial and at the same time a projection of the question “what would something be like if it weren’t like it is”.
The Modernist Thessaloniki, 2018 | Image: Post Spectacular Office
- You have likened the combination of graphic design, architecture and product design to a choice of different media of representation. What are the pros and cons of continuously going through different ways of expression and different scales?
We don’t believe that there are “cons” to these kinds of creative processes. Everything is judged by its efficacy for each creator. For us, this recurring transition functions as a way to solve design problems using different tools that verify and complete one another during the design process. We’re not only referring to means of representation but also to complementary methodologies of design that lead to the final design result. This works as a two-way street for us, both in projects that concern the scale of architecture and in works of visual communication.
Speechpoint, 2018 | Image: Post Spectacular Office
- When it comes to the representation of your spatial work, photographs (something that exists) are covered with designed lines (something that doesn’t exist), yet are in complete agreement, vindicating the minimal geometric language. How did this “bridge-building” idea come about?
These images were an answer to a specific need of presenting one of our works. We wanted to present the element of handcraft that is very present in the space we had photographed and not easy to depict. So, we needed the style that is achieved only through trembling, not at all ordered lines. The representations that came about provide the information (what the space we designed is like) but also attempt to render experienced elements (how we feel when we visit the space).
- What should we expect from you in the near future?
Design projects that seek a great connection with handcrafting skills, and collaborations with creators and connoisseurs of the materials and techniques that we use and wish to further develop.
