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Interview with Marco Filippo Batavia |
Home > Designer Interviews > Marco Filippo Batavia |
Editor Frank Scott (FS) from DesignPRWire has interviewed designer Marco Filippo Batavia (MFB) for A’ Design Award and Competition. You can access the full profile of Marco Filippo Batavia by clicking here.
FS: Could you please tell us more about your art and design background? What made you become an artist/designer? Have you always wanted to be a designer?
MFB: As a Designer, I have always harbored a deep-seated passion for nature and its systems—complex, interconnected, and dynamic. My interest spans the intricate structures of radiolarians or insects, the spread of colors in patterns across the coats of mammals or the scales of fish, and the material and functional continuity of constructs. Understanding and interpreting the logic of these systems radically changes the approach to design, both on a technical and creative level, and enables the capacity to generate a positive impact on the system that sustains life.
FS: Can you tell us more about your company / design studio?
MFB: SAES is a scientific company that deals with advanced materials for some of the most extreme application sectors: quantum computers, fusion nuclear reactors, particle accelerators, 5G, Aerospace, but also with sustainable approaches to the future, an example being the recent activities, not only in research and development but also in investments in the production of coatings for compostable food packaging and special ingredients based on artificial zeolites for the cosmetics industry. Design House is the company's first design research and development lab, dealing with both B2C innovation and research and development on materials and processes in high-value niche applications. In the Design department, we are increasingly integrating skills in computational design and lab-to-market product development processes, with the particularity being the direct transition from research labs, whether chemical or metallurgical, to design-driven innovation.
FS: What is "design" for you?
MFB: For me, doing design means innovating by building an adaptive design model, capable of interpreting inputs of any form and processing them in a creative, original, rational, and even philosophical way. The personal component is part of design because everything needs to have a language capable of depicting and representing it, which is why every object is a combination of form and function, of technique and philosophy.
FS: What kinds of works do you like designing most?
MFB: The design I prefer is what I call 'inside-out,' where the project starts from the inside, from technological innovation and from the opportunity to rethink the layout of a system even before imagining its shell. For me, the value of design resides 90% in the layout; aesthetics are a consequence of creative solutions to technical problems.
FS: What is your most favorite design, could you please tell more about it?
MFB: It's hard to say which is my favorite design, in terms of discipline probably research and development: computational design when it is material-based and nature-inspired. It is what allows for more radical experimentation on materials and systems and questions everything. I believe it is the discipline that more than any other will change the way we live and envision the future. But I appreciate all areas of design; I spent some time in automotive and cannot help but love the aerodynamic sculptures of Flavio Mazoni and his team. Among my favorite designers are Dieter Rams, Richard Sapper, Antoni Gaudi, Buckminster Fuller, and in the cinematic realm, Ken Adam. If I had to mention an object, it would probably be the Olivetti Valentine or Franco Scaglione's Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale.
FS: What was the first thing you designed for a company?
MFB: My first paid project was during the summer of my first year of university; it was a modular tabletop smoker that later became a one-off piece and is now used in the restaurant of a famous Italian chef.
FS: What is your favorite material / platform / technology?
MFB: Nanomaterials and treatments that allow for the modification of the structure on a micro and nanometric scale to confer extraordinary properties and performance. They enable significant product innovation and bring unique functionalities into people's hands. For flexibility, additive manufacturing, especially UV polymerization, remains one of the most enjoyable technologies to work with for a designer, especially now that printing times are reduced and the quality of the artifacts is increasingly high.
FS: When do you feel the most creative?
MFB: The evening and night are the times of greatest creativity. Solitude and thoughts drastically impact the quality of ideas and the moments of most intense reflection, even on general themes that have no solution: the cosmos, the ultimate meaning, the weight of the body and spirit, are those that open the mind to the deepest interpretations of projects. I often find myself dreaming of the most interesting solutions to my work. Another decisive moment for creativity is the random one, sometimes you can't predict peaks of ingenuity and inventiveness, and it happens that they occur at the most unlikely times, in those cases, I always try to accommodate them.
FS: Which aspects of a design do you focus more during designing?
MFB: The part I focus on the most is the development of a design method suitable for the project, immediately after the conceptualization phase. The workflow is not always adaptable in a way that aligns with project goals; it is important to define the structure, the skills, the software, the models for simulations, and the order of elements.
FS: What kind of emotions do you feel when you design?
MFB: When I design, I experience the entire spectrum of emotions: joy, anger, frustration. Generally, each project has a very intense emotional curve, and managing its peaks is really complex. This is especially true in the case of commercial projects, where large investments and many stakeholders are involved, the weight of responsibilities crushes clarity, and some problems become bigger than expected because it is the scale at which you view things that is influenced. When the project requires special development, I like to create custom tools, write plugins that the team can work with, and program to achieve solutions that are not obtainable with traditional tools.
FS: What kind of emotions do you feel when your designs are realized?
MFB: The joy of a beautiful project.
FS: What makes a design successful?
MFB: Commercial success and project success do not always perfectly coincide. There are products of great ingenuity that have not had commercial success. Commercial success is a simple measure to evaluate the success of a device; the more people can use it, the greater the impact it can generate, which is a thought at odds with the value given to a piece of art. However, success is measured in many other ways, primarily, I believe, by the recognition of esteemed individuals and then by the historical, scientific, and cultural value it represents.
FS: When judging a design as good or bad, which aspects do you consider first?
MFB: The first thing I look at is the purpose of the project, then whether it was designed with an inside-out logic or a styling approach. In the second case, it will hardly be an innovative product.
FS: From your point of view, what are the responsibilities of a designer for society and environment?
MFB: The designer, in a design-driven society, can influence design models to effectively respond to contemporary environmental challenges, moving away from the forcibly 'green' language and pursuing a direction of optimizing the LCA and designing devices useful to humanity.
FS: How do you think the "design field" is evolving? What is the future of design?
MFB: The discipline of design is expanding, with significant crossover into a vast array of sectors, from industrial machinery to videogames. The tools available, both digital and physical, are increasingly easy to use and powerful, and the advent of AI could represent a new step in facilitating the introduction of new functionalities and opportunities, one of which is making algorithmic and computational systems more accessible to non-programmers. In the field of products, more sophisticated computational tools also mean more performant materials not limited to laboratory scales. I envision a future more integrated with the habitat that supports us, but there is always a significant risk that technological advancement may not keep pace with education.
FS: When was your last exhibition and where was it? And when do you want to hold your next exhibition?
MFB: I don’t do design art, for now; my exhibitions are always in shared contexts, the last one I believe was in China, at an exhibition in a large complex dedicated to Design, initiated by Red Dot. The one that made me the happiest, however, was at the Guggenheim in Bilbao, organized by the Norman Foster Foundation, which decided to include one of my works developed with Audi in a pavilion focused on futuristic design.
FS: Where does the design inspiration for your works come from? How do you feed your creativity? What are your sources of inspirations?
MFB: My greatest source of inspiration is nature, which represents an inexhaustible encyclopedia of ideas, from the most analytical and rational to the most extravagant. Whether it's functionality, shapes, colors, or problem-solving, there's nothing more efficient than an evolutionary system that has spent millions of years refining its tools to make them the ultimate expression of utility for survival in a specific context.
FS: How would you describe your design style? What made you explore more this style and what are the main characteristics of your style? What's your approach to design?
MFB: I can describe my design with my department's payoff: design inspired by nature, driven by science.
FS: Where do you live? Do you feel the cultural heritage of your country affects your designs? What are the pros and cons during designing as a result of living in your country?
MFB: I was born in a small town in Tuscany called Lucca, where 15 years ago there wasn't much of a design culture, despite some designers being active internationally, for example, Benjamin de Haan, who at the time was Marc Newson's right-hand man. Each year at the Comics and Games fair, some American concept artists from the school of Scott Robertson and Daniel Simon participated, and I was always fascinated by them. Over the years, I have intertwined my passion for biology with that for design and have developed my own way of interpreting projects.
FS: How do you work with companies?
MFB: I am currently the Head of the first design innovation department at SAES and Head of Design for the B!POD brand. I do not collaborate with external companies except for internal projects.
FS: What are your suggestions to companies for working with a designer? How can companies select a good designer?
MFB: Everything depends on the project's objectives. If a company is looking for a designer to work with, they need to find someone who is technically skilled but especially visionary. It is increasingly rare to find people who have strong technical skills and also understand the market, technologies, and can communicate with all the project stakeholders, from the sketch to the shelf.
FS: Can you talk a little about your design process?
MFB: At SAES, I have developed a particular design model, the result of past experiences but entirely rebuilt based on the company's needs. Moving within a scientific reality necessarily means managing models different from the traditional ones in design-driven or product-driven companies. The projects are generally proposed by me and the Chief Innovation Officer to the Board of Directors and once partial approval is received, based on market analytics, we start an R&D process in a multidisciplinary context where the boundaries of the discipline are lost in the contamination of skills with chemists, materials engineers, and physicists. The approach is always data-driven, and the initial studies and developments are made on internal components: models, simulations, prototypes, and tests. We often build our custom tools based on the project; recently, we wrote software for managing lattice structures in complex volumes. The design process is always inside-out; technology guides the surfaces, and the formal interpretation is influenced by the environment. I have always had a great passion for scientific instrumentation and minimalist design in technical contexts, such as aerospace. I don’t deny that random insights often drastically change ongoing projects, so not everything always proceeds in a rigorous and linear manner.
FS: What are 5 of your favorite design items at home?
MFB: Among my favorite objects, I have a 'radio.cubo 50' by Brionvega designed by Zanuso and Sapper, which is old but maintains its charm and coherence. I have a prototype of a DRO!D that I designed a few years ago for the brand B!POD, which remains one of my best works. The 9090 moka pot by Sapper for Alessi, which is simply a brilliant product. The 'Bookworm' by Ron Arad for Kartell, which I believe is the only work of his that I appreciate. Finally, my 'Tolomeo' desk lamp by de Lucchi, which is just right.
FS: Can you describe a day in your life?
MFB: Fortunately, every day is different. I travel a lot for work and when I can, also for passion, but daily responsibilities consume most of my time. I often say that I really start working after 6 PM, when everyone else has gone.
FS: Could you please share some pearls of wisdom for young designers? What are your suggestions to young, up and coming designers?
MFB: I recommend dedicating the first years to learning as much as possible, not just limiting oneself to academic studies but also exploring and building your own vision. Multidisciplinary interest is what makes us unique because the craft of design, in any context, is made up of a blend of knowledge from various different fields.
FS: From your perspective, what would you say are some positives and negatives of being a designer?
MFB: Someone once told me that you cannot 'become a designer' because you either are one or you aren't. Our eyes and minds never detach from our dreams and goals; they always capture the reality around us to generate new ideas and stimuli, but sometimes this can be hard to bear and too heavy to sustain. If you're not curious about the nature of things, you can't be a good designer, but sometimes our insatiable curiosity eats us up inside.
FS: What is your "golden rule" in design?
MFB: The golden rules depend on too many factors and are an integral part of the historical era and reference culture. Generally, for the wellbeing of humanity and our planet, the rule 'less but better' applies.
FS: What skills are most important for a designer?
MFB: The ideas guides the hand. Those who can see the future and imagine innovation possess the fundamental qualities to be a designer. But to work, it is also necessary to have strong technical skills; design is a language for expressing creative solutions to technical problems, and not knowing it means being unable to communicate with others and present one's ideas. Mastering physical and digital tools for the conceptualization of ideas is as important as it is for a translator to know the language.
FS: Which tools do you use during design? What is inside your toolbox? Such as software, application, hardware, books, sources of inspiration etc.?
MFB: The documentation of a project depends on the nature of the project itself. Generally, I start with the study of patents, scientific and academic research, and consultation with teams from other disciplines. During the conceptualization phases, I use an array of tools from Rhino, Grasshopper, Houdini, Alias, to Maya, as well as software for structural and process simulation. Sources of inspiration are unlimited; they generally come from the world of biology, but sometimes, when it comes to technical products, also from niche applications of special tools or materials. In certain cases, I wonder, 'what would happen if this material that only we use could end up in the hands of a cooking enthusiast at home?'
FS: Designing can sometimes be a really time consuming task, how do you manage your time?
MFB: Managing my time has become increasingly complex as my career in the company has progressed. Responsibilities take away a lot of my design time, but over the years I have learned to spend less time doing and more time doing well.
FS: How long does it take to design an object from beginning to end?
MFB: It depends a lot on the project. When it comes to prototypes, the process is faster because it generally starts with technologies developed for other application areas and uses low-volume production models, which are usually very costly. A prototype can cost as much as a car because its value is that of a proof of concept. Commercial models require more time, market analysis, user testing, setting up industrial tooling for production, programming machines, and constructing tools, technical and logistical organization. The fastest process I have worked on lasted two and a half years.
FS: What was your most important job experience?
MFB: Definitely the current one, working in a material company and proving that design can be a fundamental tool even in the field of advanced research and development is a dream for me.
FS: Who are some of your clients?
MFB: I don't have clients at the moment. In the past, I have worked for clients from various sectors, including automotive, naval, industrial machinery, and consumer goods.
FS: What type of design work do you enjoy the most and why?
MFB: Research oriented design
FS: What are your future plans? What is next for you?
MFB: Proceed with innovation in the application of special technologies in the consumer sector. Finalize the establishment of a corporate hub dedicated to computational design and make the innovation process increasingly integrated with the group's chemistry and metallurgy laboratories.
FS: Do you work as a team, or do you develop your designs yourself?
MFB: I work in a multidisciplinary team but I started working alone. Being in a unique workplace with unusual briefs, I dedicate a lot of time to training new hires, always trying to extract the utmost commitment and curiosity from them. The teams are then divided based on the projects. For one of our commercial projects called 'B!POD', we already have more than 60 people actively involved, including internal team members and full-time collaborators.
FS: Do you have any works-in-progress being designed that you would like to talk about?
MFB: I am working on the development of new materials with special features by combining material science and computational design, but I cannot yet discuss it. For the B!POD brand, we have developed a compostable material with the same properties as polyacrylate polymers, which are generally almost impossible to recycle. Recently, we have also developed high-performance running shoe soles with software that we programmed internally.
FS: How can people contact you?
MFB: Through my work email, or via Linkedin
FS: Thank you for providing us with this opportunity to interview you.
A’ Design Award and Competitions grants rights to press members and bloggers to use parts of this interview. This interview is provided as it is; DesignPRWire and A' Design Award and Competitions cannot be held responsible for the answers given by participating designers.
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