20 Apr 2022 | People

Objects of Common Interest

The Greek design studio that conquered the international world of design

DS.WRITER:

Sophia Throuvala

Photo credit: stefanos tsakiris / Alcova - Etage - Future Archaeology

Their work centres around creating installations and/or experiential environments and objects-sculptures, with an emphasis on the materiality and spatiality of each form. Since 2012, while simultaneously running the OOCI firm, they have been keeping an architectural office also in Athens and New York, LOT office for architecture, their design firm being a branch of it.

In the past year, the duo has enacted many major collaborations and projects, resulting in stirring and unique work, something very important for a Greek design office, which actually, as analysed below, matches elements of the Greek landscape with a unique in its kind site. Specifically, the recent solo exhibition titled “Hard, Soft, and All Lit Up with Nowhere to Go”, which will be running in The Noguchi Museum of New York until February 13th of 2022, is a homage to Isamu Noguchi and his belief that he doesn’t create architecture or design but objects of sculpture and interrelations. Furthermore, the participation in Gallery Carawan, for Athens Design Forum, with the project “Volax”, and the major collaboration with Danish gallery Etage Projects are very intriguing works. The latter, which took place in Milan during Design Week, includes furniture that simultaneously evokes the best side of the 80s -futurism and minimalism- but is titled “Future Archaeology”, emphasising thus a completely postmodern approach to design and the historical aspect of the object or even to the architecturally structured point as a study.

As they have stated in sight unseen, architecture is their core inspiration. The relationships between volumes, the structure and the connecting points between void and plentitude, materiality that is manifested through the use of light, and, lastly, the presence of transparency as defining factor for the juxtaposition of shadow and brightness through light diffusion, are elements referencing architecture while constituting an integral part of the design object production of Petaloti and Trampoukis. Despite their active partaking in the world of design and the architectural handling of the materials, they turn to art to create their forms, which correspond, one could say, to phenomenological analyses of the object and abject. As they have implied in an interview, their design is more than a creation of objects in space. They are presences responding to the logic of installations, one that promotes coexistence with the viewer or buyer. According to them, “It’s not just about the objects themselves [...] it’s about the feeling visitors have when they start moving around.” (collectible design fair Brussels 2019).

Their materials, reshaped to a formalistic, functionalistic but also completely abstract whole, reveal indirectly their relationship with the Greek landscape. In their new project that they shared with us, we see the use of wood as a material manifestation of warmth and familiarity, the use of marble as a reference to tradition, of transparency and light as inherent to the Mediterranean space, within which the playfulness of water is rendered through transparency and the presence of the warm sun through light.

The titles reflect a reference to their background and Hellenism is present in an abstract and post-minimalistic way that can be functional and decorative at the same time. Moreover, the selected colours mimic the simplicity of seaside places and islands, where land and sea coexist. An important element, which showcases these relationships between volumes or references, is the element of internal balance, of the fragile and imperceptible meeting something heavy and solid (e.g. wood), and creating, in the end, something comfortable but firm. Finally, in their work, new or past, showcasing the ephemeral compared or opposed to the permanent is important, through a constant interchanging of materials and the configuration of forms within the whole of each collection.

Below are some photographs from their latest, very important projects: in Gallery Carawan for Athens Design Forum with the project “Volax”, the series titled “Future Archaeology” in Alcova in collaboration with etage projects, and the exhibition titled “Hard, Soft, and All Lit Up with Nowhere to Go” in The Noguchi Museum of New York.