light at the center of the needs of those who live in an architectural space
LUCE · septembre 2021
Davide Oppizzi was born in Switzerland in 1971, to an Italian mother and a Swiss father. From these two cultures, he inherited the “Swiss made” attitude and the Latin temperament. A childhood spent in the heart of nature and a creative instinct led him to study Applied Arts. Founder of the DCUBE Swiss SA design studio in Geneva, Oppizzi specializes in the creation and development of high-quality projects related to lighting, interior design, greentech and architecture. Thanks to his multidisciplinary knowledge, he has brought his creations to the forefront of the international scene. Prestigious brands such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Graff have entrusted it with projects of excellence both in the world of industrial products and in that of lighting design. His lighting is the art of light, the only way, in his own words, to sublimate the material with which he works, with a rare and unique mastery of technology and a creative sensitivity.
Can we see it in the lamps designed for Artemide? We can confidently say that, thanks to the production tool of a company like Artemide and its impact, it is possible to achieve 99% of the initial vision of the project, and therefore to obtain a product as close as possible to what was imagined and designed. The key to the Curiosity collection created for Artemide was to remain faithful to the idea that the lamp was no longer the central element, but on the contrary what was welcomed on its base plate, became the foreground element. Its lines have been continually perfected and refined to reveal its silent strength. This object does not have the seductive qualities that strike us "in the very first seconds" of some very showy lamps on the market, because it is very intangible, but when we discover its true lighting capabilities, its ergonomics and its simplicity, its materiality and its optical quality, it takes on a new force, and it is this invisible force that we seek to pursue in our projects. Your Studio is located in Geneva, near the river of a magnificent lake; what are your main sources of inspiration and how have they changed in this particular period we are going through? I always tell my team that we are incredibly privileged! The nature that surrounds the studio, located on the outskirts of Geneva, about 15 km from the city center, is certainly a source of inspiration, but above all a space of calm in which it has been easier to manage the pandemic crisis we are going through. Our whole team enjoys it: walks in the vineyards and jogging along the water of the nature reserve, just 200 meters from us. It is a nature reserve, called "The River Chronicle", which, after all, corresponds exactly to our aspirations: a search for harmony between man and nature. At DCUBE, we constantly cultivate innovation, curiosity and anticipation of technological trends. We observe with attention and curiosity what other designers design, who inspire us and who are sometimes our mentors. We love the urban and contemporary spirit, futuristic visions and experiments with materials, innovation and above all the human being at the center of it all. This place encourages the bringing together of all these themes, a little far from the city, in this countryside which certainly offers us the clarity and calm necessary to analyze them and stimulate our imagination. With the repeated confinements, we had the time to deepen certain projects often left aside due to lack of time, and we took advantage of these moments when travel was prohibited to devote more attention to our creative methodology. Can you tell us about the projects you presented at Milan Design Week? At the "Supersalone" in Milan, on the theme of industrial design, we presented a new collection for Artemide called Needoo, which addresses the very delicate and current issue of the disappearance of birds, which no longer find places to land in the city. Based on the concept that a tree is also a pole, we created residential lampposts on which we integrated nesting boxes to encourage nesting. On this project, we are also collaborating with BirdLife International, the largest ornithological NGO in the world. This project is as much a design project as it is a message that we want to convey to all designers, namely to help nature which, paradoxically, we are destroying.
Are there any other lighting projects in the works? We are also working on new lighting collections for DesignHeure, Fiam, Linea Light and NUD, which we hope to see in the first part of next year. Regarding architectural lighting, at the beginning of September 2021, we completed a project for the new Audemars Piguet Watch Manufacture, located in the Swiss Jura; a major project to illuminate the 10,000 square meters of the production site and the brand's head office. For this magnificent contemporary building created by the Swiss architects Kunik de Morsier, we designed, in collaboration with Artemide, special lighting fixtures with specific optical ergonomics, based on a photobiological spectral balance adapted to the needs of watchmakers. In Geneva, we completed a lighting project for the insurance company SwissLife, owner of a 130-meter-long gallery on Rue du Rhône, one of the most prestigious streets in Geneva, where the big names are located (Chanel, Louis Vuitton, etc.). This project uses Pixel dynamic white light in aluminum profiles, which offers the possibility of lighting in classic warm or cold light mode, or, if required for commercial events, the same device can be transformed into a Pixel digital device on which we can integrate dynamic video images. It is a unique “2 in 1” system. We also have a series of upcoming projects in hospitals, where we are very active with our hyper-realistic sky systems Coelux and Light Cognitive. What would you like to pass on to the next generation? Things well done and with a unique character are born from perseverance and attention, from taking personal risks, from the desire to learn in depth, from the effort of careful work and from looking at our planet with respect for its resources. I hope with all my heart that the next generation can be the guardians of all these qualities. I also hope that the world of design will be able to question itself to produce objects in harmony with our environment, and that, for each square centimeter of space or material "stolen" from nature, we will be able to give it back, not with carbon compensation or any other financial artifice, but with a real effort to protect living beings, these living beings who will always have infinite value for me bigger. Design no longer has any meaning or value if it serves causes contrary to the harmony between man and his environment.
Architect Oppizzi, the design studio you founded deals not only with high-quality design, green technologies and architecture, but also with the "art of light". Can you tell us about it? The world of lighting is imbued with technological know-how, thanks to the efforts of engineers and inventors of innovative systems for whom I have great admiration; over the years, however, the demand for innovation aimed solely at obtaining a "visual performance" or a "graphic light effect", or even at choosing a "sculptural luminous object without lighting qualities", has become a limit. DCUBE's vision is to consider light emitted by a source as a material. It is important for us to master the technical aspect of light, but it is even more important to know it in depth from an aesthetic point of view: it is like knowing how to choose a fabric that perfectly matches your interior design. In addition to the essential ergonomic aspects (Kelvin, CRI, UGR, focal lengths, etc.), today we must also place light in space-time. This is how we give meaning and movement to light in its context. We have entered the era of “light software”; from Bluetooth systems to simplified control systems via our tablets or smartphones, we have an incredible opportunity to dictate to lighting systems, whether decorative and/or technical, the scenarios that accompany us in our moods, so that they define us at the center of our needs, as the expression "Human Centric" expresses so well. Lighting". Human beings find themselves in situations where they need very specific lighting scenarios, at very specific times. Beyond the lamp as an object, once its technological part has been mastered, the art of lighting for us consists of observing the activities that belong to the sphere of those who live in an architectural space (for example, designing a lounge atmosphere for an aperitif with friends, or a very bright atmosphere in the same place for work, etc.) and adapting to their different moods. We could hypothesize that the art of light is hidden, as in life, in the art of listening to our needs... In your work you apply both creative feeling and technological competence; would you like to tell us a few words about it? Mastering technology frees us from creative constraints. Just as a pianist needs to know how to use his musical scales to feel free to compose, it is imperative that the designer understands how to integrate electronic components into his idea in terms of dimensions, electronic operation, volume of the object (scale) and desired lighting effect. Constraint is an extraordinary engine for stimulating creativity; it allows you to give free rein to your imagination linked to reality, freeing you from the naivety which consists of "imagining" being able to "fit an elephant into a box of matches". As in all the great schools of formal aesthetics, it is the art of drawing essential lines which predominates; questioning is permanent, and the sense of self-criticism is of capital importance. The object acquires meaning, the content and form have their own solidity, and mastery of engineering becomes the guarantee of success. I rarely create an object solely for its aesthetic, the object is always linked to a vision; if this vision is lost along the way during the design process, then the object no longer has any meaning and becomes an empty container.
Light at the center of the needs of users of an architectural space
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