In Praise of Waste

The title refers to Pink House, located on the island of Kastellorizo. Designed by Greek designer Savvas Laz, this house makes a strong impression.

DS.WRITER:

Τάσος Γιαννακόπουλος

Furniture, door handles, beds and everything else that constitutes a house, are designed by his hand and rouse curiosity since they are made from polystyrene, the material known to all of us as styrofoam. The pieces he chose for construction, using fibreglass to stick and bind them together, are pieces of trash. They are waste, the things one discards having consumed its contents, they are useless matter. Their creator calls them Trashformers.

Trashformers | Savas Laz facebook.com

Pink House | ft.com

Trashformers and Pink House are parts of a greater project that aims to include the whole of Kastellorizo island, in order to transform it into a cultural and artistic destination that can spark conversation regarding both of these worlds. This idea is the offspring of the mind of Italian collector Nicoletta Fiorucci. Fiorucci is known for “planting” such ideas across the landscapes of many different islands in Europe, amounting to radical and experimental results. She spends her summers hosting young artists in the archipelago of Li Galli near the Amalfi coast. She, along with artists, manages the Fiorucci Art Trust, which hosts the Volcano Extravaganza every year in Stromboli.

Pink house | ft.com

She met Savvas in one of her visits to Athens because of a green chair he created and the rest, as they say, is history. “If Savvas can construct a chair, then he can construct a whole house” was the thought that led to the conception of Pink House. In its relatively conventional interiors, the unexpected forms of Trashformers are installed, like totem poles made by pieces of trash that are painted white.

Pink house | savvaslaz.com

I don’t think it would be fruitful to talk about their form and the language they presumably suggest. They are all contemporary pieces of furniture, more concerned with the meaning that they intend rather than the aesthetic aspect of their form. There is no emphasis on the use of their form. That’s something outdated! Form is unexpectedly present there, more to ignite thoughts relating to what its materials, its construction process and their bizarre combination represent, rather than to -possibly- impress emotionally as a presence. They are not Eames furniture. Here, the random, the fragment, the rejected spolia and their possible past as waste and packaging, are more interesting than the form itself.

In this case, we are presented with a dilemma: is this an inventive cultural technique of recycling waste and saving raw materials or is it yet another story of viewing design as part of an indefatigable economic production and expansion of the fields of consumerism? On the one hand, we have the democratisation of design, with Savvas Laz inspiring us to view waste in a creative light, and on the other, yet another product. Many times, ambiguity is power.