The rhythms and habits of work nowadays are increasingly oppressive. The Bouroullec brothers have a solution to turn it around through design: it’s cat ergonomics
Designers, as members of society, endure change – the Bouroullec brothers speak out about purpose economy
The labor market and the economy shape society. Design evolves according to the transformations taking place within the social fabric. People’s sensibility changes, and so do their habits. Designers, as members of society, endure change, but in a certain way they can also facilitate it. They can addressmatters of the utmost urgency and prominence. The new face of the working world – still strongly torn by inequalities and suffocated by toxic and unhealthy dynamics – has not spared even the creative sectors, once considered a bulwark of a free and lively lifestyle.
But how is professional practice evolving in the field of design? Paris-based brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec tell their personal experiences in design, from the beginning of their career – when they used to knock on the doors of agents and clients to propose their projects – to today, between ethical and practical challenges looking for purpose economy.
Bouroullec design: making inroads into the working world
RONAN BOUROULLEC
Since I was an emerging designer some things changed and some remained the same. I am fifty-two and I did my first exhibition when I was only eighteen. It is difficult to imagine how it was back then. Today it seems prehistoric because the internet did not exist yet. The only way to show my work to someone was to knock on as many doors as possible. To present my drawing, do pitches and send physical mails to journalists and magazines. I used to dedicate a lot of time to drawing, printing, and doing sketches. It had disadvantages. At the time it was impossible to carry out projects at the same pace as today. Communication was complex, mysterious and maybe more romantic, but also much more frustrating.
Evolving as the situation changes – Bouroullec
RONAN BOUROULLEC
I was extremely lucky to be invited to exhibit at such a young age and access some established magazines and museums with such a small name. It all happened step by step, while now you can share a couple of pictures on Instagram and be noticed. I think that today you can arrive quite quickly to certain points. On the other hand I think it is still the same. As a designer you have to behave intelligently in relation to the contexts with which you are confronted. Design demands empathy and requires you to evolve as the situation changes. I cannot say if it was better before or it is better today.
Bouroullec design: making inroads into the working world
ERWAN BOUROULLEC
I also followed a process which used to be quite normal at the time. I was in art school when Ronan was starting to establish his studio. In a way it was extremely simple for both of us, before at different times and then together. We started with early ideas and prototypes. Then, we moved onto exhibitions and from there we met the industry and our professional partners. I guess the situation is quite similar now. Emerging designers have to make the most of their young age and try to let their practice and vision emerge.
One of the major differences is that before the world used to be much smaller. There were no social networks. In a way it was easier to show your works in the right place and meet the right people. One of the big issues is the pervasiveness of social media because they convey such a big volume of information, that it is extremely difficult to engage with the right people at the right time. We come from a time in which it used to be more silent, sometimes too silent, and there were no real places devoted to new things, now there are way too many and it can be incredibly noisy. Thus it is difficult to make your voice heard, sometimes.
The evolution of the industry from the Seventies
RONAN BOUROULLEC
Recently I was quite shocked looking at pictures of an architecture studio from the Seventies. You see all these men – they were just men of course – in suits and ties, each of them working at a well-equipped architect table. I thought it must be difficult to be an architect at that time. We complain a lot about laptops and the amount of time we spend in front of them, but some decades ago they had to do everything by hand, from sketches to technical drawings.
It was romantic, but I guess it could also be extremely boring and frustrating. It does not matter what tool you use, it is a matter of passion and love for what you do. But probably I am not a good judge. I studied applied arts and since then I started ranging between different fields – design, photography, painting, architecture – and my parents allowed me to do almost everything I wanted, always supporting me. And I continue to be lucky to jump from one subject to another, to discuss with inspiring people and professionals and work in various fields and contexts.
The new face of the labor market between technological advances, hybridization, inequalities and general discontent
ERWAN BOUROULLEC
That of design and architecture is not an easy environment. There are less and less companies willing to engage workers, or willing to build long-lasting relationships. It is not ideal, far from ideal. And I think that the rich countries’ relationship with work definitely needs to evolve. We are a schizophrenic society, trying to organize everything, just as in industrial production. But what does industrial production mean? It implies the involvement of machines carrying out activities which once belonged to humans, and in many cases this is a good thing.
Our societies have also been proving that it is possible to establish a system in which some people work and some people don’t and everyone can get revenues. So the old habits of those who live locked within the walls of their offices is ridiculous for a couple of reasons. First of all, because often this lifestyle is not even the result of the pressure put by the employer on the employees. Most of the times they do not ask their staff to dedicate their whole life to work, sometimes it is just a habit, a tradition, a way to say «Yes, I respect you Mr. boss» or «Yes I respect you Mr. market or whatever».
Design improves the quality of people’s working life – Bouroullec’s brothers
RONAN BOUROULLEC
In the past few months France has been riddled by protests and riots against the new retirement laws, which imposed an increase in the retirement age from sixty to sixty-two. It is a big deal, especially for those who perform physically arduous jobs. But also for those who spend eight hours or more at their desks. I understand how they can get totally mad. The heart of the question is to find a new intelligent attitude to work and rethink the way things are done. And of course, improve the quality of people’s working life which involves everything. The activities, the atmosphere in the working environment, the objects and the things surrounding workers throughout the day.
ERWAN BOUROULLEC
Then of course working like hell is reinforcing the gap between men and women. It is not secret science; they get lower salaries and often struggle to access upper positions in the hierarchy. When it comes to CEOs it is not 50-50, it is far from being 50-50.
Typically, women are more engaged in family care. I have two daughters and I love taking care of them. But I realize that at some point in life it can be 50-50 between father and mother. During pregnancy we do not carry the baby as well as in the early years the figure of the mother is crucial. This is why imposing long hours of work is ridiculous and detrimental for equality. At least in our studio the team is made up of more women than men. I am sure that I would see no difference in revenues if it was the other way around.
Bouroullec: Gender gap is rooted in our society
RONAN BOUROULLEC
I feel that things are changing a lot. Sometimes I teach at the university and it fills me with joy to see many girls studying and working in this field. I am also a proud father of two teenagers and I am happy to see this new generation fighting for their ideals. There is still a gender gap. Although I do not think it is a specificity of certain fields, it is rooted in our society. I see how this sort of thing is taking so long to change.
Striving for a healthy work-life balance in a society which wants us to be ever more productive. The alternative is called Purpose economy
ERWAN BOUROULLEC
And then strangely we got equipped with factories, many machines and new production methods. This should allow us to work a little bit less and do something more for our suffering communities. Right now – here in France – school is suffering, healthcare is suffering, as well as many other sectors. If only people had more time outside work to engage with their communities. Right now, there is some level of toxicity in the design and architecture work environment. But this toxicity is much more ancient. I think we need to rethink our relationship with work and totally rethink the way we relate to unemployed people.
We are always so aggressive towards them. But there are so many people who, for different reasons, cannot find a job. Maybe they used to work in a factory which all of a sudden moved away. I find it so unfair. What is problematic indeed in our society is that the gap between people who have a job and people who don’t, and also between rich and poor, is getting more and more extreme. It is like an elastic which is stretching and stretching. At the end of the day it will inevitably break. This unhealthy attitude to work concerns me a lot. I consider devoting your whole life to work as one of the most idiotic habits of our times. It is definitely not a proactive way of working, especially in design studios.
Changing the idea of working – in design also, purpose economy puts needs at the center
RONAN BOUROULLEC
There is no perimeter of work and personal life. I like to draw during the day and I like to draw during the night. Things are mixed. Maybe I am just lucky to love what I do. To me the issue is not so much about how to deal with work, but to find interest in what you do. There are many types of jobs which require you to spend whole days glued to a computer or a telephone. I know this can be frustrating, alienating.
ERWAN BOUROULLEC
I have been changing dramatically in the past five years. I am looking for more freedom for everyone. Most of my collaborators want to work four days a week, each for different reasons. Some come from an art school background and want more time for their personal projects, others simply need more time for their private stuff. In the past I used to refuse it, now it is the opposite: I suggest it.
This is not changing anything regarding productivity. Plus I think that if we devoted ourselves to other activities we could also improve in those areas as society. An example: if you dedicate time to properly cook, you get good, healthy food, if you don’t you get bad food. This is why so many people do not eat vegetables or exercise, because they simply do not have time. If we did better for the health of people the savings for society in economic terms would be considerable.
Ethics in the workplace: are power and creativity excuses for wrongdoing?
ERWAN BOUROULLEC
I do not think work is alienating per se. A couple of things have changed since I started. Back then most companies were family-owned, so the owner was also the director and everything. In a way it was good because if you were lucky enough you could find a terrific partner to work with, responsive and efficient, with whom you could build a man-to-man relationship. But there were also downsides: in these situations, there was often too much ego involved.
Right now I see more and more horizontal management coming in. Then the Covid period made a lot of people moving to video conference platforms. What I noticed is that people would speak more, even the most shy, because online everyone has their own tiny case, from the boss to the assistant. People’s ego can be explosive in a positive way, but it can also cause a lot of frustration. Now there is slightly more management, decision-making processes are more structured. We come from the Seventies, when the boss was a sort of emperor. I am happy that we are now moving towards more democratic times.
Finally, something we cannot ignore is the Me Too movement. I do not trust many creative environments. People are often allowed inappropriate behaviors in name of their status as an artist or visionary. This is why we need to get rid of that ego, we need to rebalance the relationships between people.
The role of design in ensuring a healthy and worker-friendly working environment: a purpose-driven economy
ERWAN BOUROULLEC
When designing furniture for the work space, I think that one of the things to do is decoding and one of the typical examples of this approach is the Joyn table we made for Vitra a long time ago. This was not a working table, but just a table. Work is extremely contextual. At the time we designed that table there were no laptops, no flat screens, everything was tool-based.
Decoding means doing something as generic as possible instead of doing something specific. If an object is generic anything can happen on top of it. Work has the natural need to evolve because most of the time it is confronted to the real world and the real world is moving. The workplace should be able to evolve, reconfigure and at last welcome the new generations. Something we found out super quickly is that inside the Joyn collection there was no executive version. This is also decoding, erasing all signs of hierarchy: you do not know if a table is for the boss or for a regular employee. It’s about purpose economy.
Bouruollec – design can only try to serve a situation
RONAN BOUROULLEC
We started to work on this topic about twenty-five years ago and it proved to be the right time because it coincided with the advent of the internet: computers were starting to populate office desks and the way people worked was changing forever. We were young and it was interesting to analyze these new tools and invent new ways to connect the devices to the table. Today it seems obvious, but at that time it was about creating a big new platform where people could come to work together. Now it has been adapted to all kinds of companies and people gather around these tables like chickens.
That was not the original idea: we wanted to create a collective table surrounded by a cozy environment where people could move from the chair to the sofa and then back to the table. Back then offices used to be black and white, much different from the domestic context: we introduced colors, textures and a new atmosphere. Introducing bright colors is not enough to create a healthy environment, if you are treated badly by your boss it does not matter if it is in color or in black and white. Design can only try to serve a situation and the people who live it.
Bouroullec on reinventing design: physical ergonomics
ERWAN BOUROULLEC
And then there is another factor: reinventing a new physical ergonomics. We come from a time when mobile phones did not exist yet, everything you might need was at your desk and then you would move to go to the meeting room or out for coffee. Now it is different because you can move your pc, your phone, and so on.
Today the real ergonomics is a group ergonomics involving the whole space. Instead of proposing ergonomic features focusing on one single person, we should provide a space offering different kind of situations: sometimes it is good to walk around the office, sometimes it is good to sit on a stool, sometimes is good to sit on a sofa or in a cool moving chair, sometimes you need some light and sometimes it is better to stay in the darkness. A space in which you can intuitively find different types of patterns and areas. I put a name on it, the cat ergonomics: cats can find the best positions in every situation and at the same time they get to stretch their bodies. The worst thing you can do for your body is repeating the same actions and positions over and over again.
The influence of new technologies on the design process – Bouroullec brothers
ERWAN BOUROULLEC
I was a computer kid, when I was about seven years old the first Mac was released on the market. I have always liked computers for the opportunities they provided, in fact I learned to use digital software by myself. For instance, some years ago I started experimenting with computer coding from which I did a lot of drawings and art pieces. My passion for technology goes hand in hand with that for manual skills, for example one of the first machines I bought was a sewing machine with which I learned the basics of stitching. In Bouroullec Studio we always strive to understand how the basic tools we need to develop our projects work. Learning is a strong creative engine and there is no real difference between learning to use a technological device or the principles of carpentry.
RONAN BOUROULLEC
I come from another world; I don’t even own a laptop. I only use my mobile phone and i-Pad with which I send sketches to my assistant or take pictures and share them with magazines or online. Although I am well surrounded by people who do 3D printing, I keep making a lot of mockups, sketches and drawings by hand on paper. Time after time we try to integrate new tools in order to find better or more efficient ways to do things. In the past I used to do technical drawings in two dimensions, now I am lucky I can use a 3D design software which allows me to turn and see my sketches from different perspectives.
Technology impact on design according to Bouroullec brothers
ERWAN BOUROULLEC
I do not draw on paper anymore. A few years ago I bought an i-Pad and a pen which I find much more efficient: I can use as many colors as I want and I do not have to carry my sketchbook and pencils with me everywhere I go. I think they disappeared from my desk four or five years ago. Maybe it is not a definitive decision, but I do not feel any kind of romantic attachment to paper and pen. Technology has improved the lives of so many people, doing so much good to some categories, such as disabled people. Many people are angry at technology because it supposedly takes our personal information and data, but in exchange we have Google Maps for free. Can you imagine what we would do without it?
RONAN BOUROULLEC
Take Artificial Intelligence for example, I find it scary and exciting at the same time. It can help a lot of people as well as it can be detrimental for our society. I try to be optimistic, but I guess we will have to wait and see what happens in the next few years.
The purpose-driven economy. Produce less and produce better: a utopia or an achievable reality?
ERWAN BOUROULLEC
Twenty years ago, it could be a desire, now it is mandatory: we must produce better. What it means I do not exactly know; I do not think there is a general rule because every situation is different. But there are a few guidelines we need to follow, one of which is having a better ecological practice. Ecology is as vital as our labor relations with companies. The fact is that in our society all the capitalistic factors are consolidating: new companies arise and competition increases all over the world. But better production is certainly not synonymous with cheaper products. Prices must be consistent with the context in which they are produced and with the productive inputs employed. Right now we are surrounded by so many products with no value, and that is exactly what happens with fast fashion. We came to a point where things have literally no cost.
Bouroullec: Convincing new generations to be more conscious
RONAN BOUROULLEC
I hope we are going towards a more sustainable way of producing and consuming and being more and more confident with the concept of purpose economy. We cannot escape it anymore. Sustainability has been a subject for so many years, people have been speaking about it without really modifying their behaviors. I am optimistic, I think we have the ability to modify our behaviors and the Covid emergency proved that in certain situations we can actually rethink the way we do things quite quickly. But perhaps the crux of the matter is that this change cannot be pursued only in France or Italy, but on a global scale. Again, the new generations are more conscious about these themes. Their real struggle is that they have to convince people from my generation to produce and consume things in a better way, to act in a completely different way.
Purpose economy: Bouroullec and the burden of design: giving a shape to reality in an ever-changing society
RONAN BOUROULLEC
We are all actors of this transition and all areas of our economy are involved: as a designer, I have to design in a more integrated way taking in account the changes happening in our society. It is all connected, from the colors, materials and shapes to the production methods and the quantities we produce. Economic value creation is focused on enabling purposeful self-expression for employees and customers – it’s called purpose economy.
ERWAN BOUROULLEC
Design is just a practice, it is not creating movement or promoting change in the short run. But today we sit on a sofa differently than we did fifty years ago, and this is good because it means that we learned to relate to our bodies in a different way, we assimilated new social protocols and design has played its part. Right now our responsibility is to be much more careful about ethics. If you employ poor production methods, you will only create some waste.
Transparent design according to Bouroullec brothers
RONAN BOUROULLEC
In my work I always have this tension, you know when you have a dream – or maybe a nightmare – in which you are running after something but you can never reach it: I am always running after good projects. I am trying to remain passionate and jump into my workshop to make a good chair for people who need a good chair, at the correct price, employing machines which enable us to make things in the most correct and efficient way possible, while also protecting craftsmanship all over the world. Work is such a tricky subject because it is made up of so many aspects: what you do, how you do it, are you passionate about it, are you losing your time, can you find pleasure in what you do… It is all a matter of balance.
ERWAN BOUROULLEC
A pressing issue nowadays is that most people are having more and more difficulties to grasp the physical world around them, for non-specialists it is arduous to understand what kind of material they are dealing with, what processes are behind an object and thus its economic value. If people are not able to understand what is around them, they will encounter a lot of difficulties when making a choice as consumers. And ecology today has a lot to do with materiality.
One of the key things, as a designer, is to do what I call a transparent design, which means making things people can fully understand. This is why I always studied the basics of the production techniques necessary to make my projects. One of the biggest challenges and the best responsibility I can have right now is to create clear and transparent objects. People must be able to read the world and this design has a huge relevance because it actually gives a shape to everything.
Bouroullec brothers – from Cappellini to Flos
Ronan (born 1971) and Erwan Bouroullec (born 1976) are brothers and designers based in Paris. They have been working together for several years bonded by diligence and challenged by their distinct personalities. In 1997, they were spotted by Cappellini, giving them their first industrial design projects. Since then, they have gone on to work with Vitra, Artek, Alessi, Axor Hansgrohe, Established & Sons, Flos, Hay, Kettal, Kvadrat, Kartell and many more.
