Hrafnkell Birgisson and Sebastian Summa have worked together on projects for exhibition- and product design since 2002. Sebastian Summa was trained as a blacksmith before he began his industrial design studies in Berlin. He also designed the lamp “phon” for Hugo Bräuer Metallwaren. Hrafnkell Birgisson studied design in Saarbrücken and Berlin. He works and teaches in Reykjavik, Weimar and San Francisco amongst others. Interview: Sabine Trieloff. Berlinomat, Berlin/Germany, September 30, 2006.
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00:00and the idea was to pick up these very old wooden forms and to give them a new
00:11function or a new life and this product which we have here they are baking molds
00:20now and they in the past they have been absolutely different and now we have
00:31these baking molds and you can bake this abstract form as a cake this is for example the model Bessy
01:00interesting yeah it's a double function as well a little bit like
01:26yeah we also you can always use two there are six together you can use two and two as a bowl
01:43container and we wanted it to have really aesthetic you know form that because baking molds are most often just kept somewhere, hidden in the kitchen, they don't have any really aesthetic form
02:07and where can you buy this right now just here in Berlin in different places in
02:22Germany in Europe? We found a distributor now, he spread it out now in the whole Europe, in design shops.
02:43Is it maybe part of your work, part of your project to look for such companies, small companies, craftsmen which could supply you, you have an idea and then you go back and you look into the history what has been done in this area or where
03:13Yeah definitely, I think it's just a movement of so many designers doing this today, it's all about this actually today, the designer has to initiate the project himself, you have to be much more autonomous today as a designer, you have to go to the companies, you cannot wait for someone to do it, you have to go to the companies, you cannot wait for someone to do it, you have to go to the companies, you cannot wait for someone to do it, you have to go to the companies, you cannot wait for someone to do it, you have to go to the companies, you cannot wait for someone to do it, you have to go to the companies, you cannot wait for someone to do it, you have to go to the companies, you cannot wait for someone to do it, you have to go to the companies, you cannot wait for someone to do it, you have to go to the companies, you cannot wait for someone to do it, you have to go to the companies, you cannot wait for someone to do it, you have to go
03:43to the companies, you cannot wait for someone to do it, you have to go to the companies,
04:00out of the city and there is also some structure, you have to put ideas into this structure
04:10and then you have business going again, possibly.
04:16So we have heard quite a lot about products, older ones, newer ones.
04:22Let's have a look at the end at one of your newest projects.
04:29Patch Up London, a lot of tourists coming to London every year and you invented a new
04:36idea of developing a city.
04:40Sebastian, maybe you can tell us about it.
04:42This is a project I did with three friends of mine.
04:47We call it the Stu-Stu-Studio.
04:54The idea behind this is like a souvenir, but it's not a souvenir, it's more like a pre-souvenir.
05:05We have been in London and we thought about how can we make a souvenir for the city.
05:16We found a lot of gaps or outbroken parts in the walls there.
05:27Then we found the idea to fill these holes with material and to make these pieces here.
05:42This is one of these pieces and this piece fits in a special hole, in only one hole in London.
05:52This piece is unique and our idea is that we can sell it as a pre-souvenir in another place,
06:01not in London, out of London.
06:05When you get on a journey to London, you can buy it and you don't know where exactly the location is.
06:20When you buy it, you open this etiquette and find the postcode of the location.
06:32Then you can find the gap and the ideas on the way to find it.
06:41You have a small adventure and you can buy the adventure before you go there.
06:51This is the reason why we call it pre-souvenir.
06:56But I have no idea of the street, so I have the postcode, so I know more or less the area,
07:02where could it be and then you have to discover.
07:07We look for very interesting places in our view.
07:18Sometimes there is a nice shop or a nice flea market in this area or interesting culture, subculture.
07:32So we guide these people to the places with this piece.
07:45Is the London Tourism Board already supporting this project?
07:50They should.
07:55This is only for London, but we can do it with Berlin.
07:58Berlin is perfect for it, because we have a lot of holes in the walls.