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PIcking Up the Pieces - Environmentally Responsible Design
 The
furniture with the strange legs, the “accordion” stool, and the bags at Singh
Intrachooto’s exhibition space stood out in Hall 5A at the September edition of
Maison & Objet Talents à la
Carte. At first glance they seemed
to have no relation one with the other.
Singh never stopped smiling as fair visitors barraged him with
questions. The relationship between the
objects only became clear after he explained that all of the objects on display
were made from waste—scraps of wood from job sites, discarded business
documents, bottle caps, discarded pieces of suede or fabric. (Right: Maison & Objet space, Intro photo: Chunky Stool)
Singh
Intrachooto, partner with Veeranuch Tanchookiat, in Bangkok-based Osisu Design,
is an architect, product designer, and Assistant Professor of Building
Innovation and Technology at Kasetsart University in Bangkok dedicated to the
practice of environmentally responsible design.
(He is also a visiting professor at the School of Architecture of the University of Washington, Seattle.) The carpenters who work in the Osisu studio
take the scraps of wood left over from the buildings designed by Singh to make
contemporary furniture or to craft cabinetry in subsequent buildings, like his
own live/work space. Trees uprooted to
build roads are reclaimed and refined to make stools and tables. Leather which is not suitable for one
producer is turned into embroidered document bags. Discarded bottle tops function as the base to
these bags to protect them when set on the ground. For Osisu Design, their commitment to
extending the life cycle of natural materials has become a happy marriage with
contemporary design and functionality. The three new lines for 2006, Lini, Lami, and Tilee are all handcrafted from salvaged teak cut-offs or laminated wood, and in case you're wondering, are even designed for compact living.
 Your design philosophy.
So far…I
like to think of myself as an environmentally responsible designer. I have always based my design on a green
approach to design from the choice of materials, to the sourcing of tasks to
the people who build my design. A valued
creation from underappreciated materials. (Right: Lini Chairwalker)
What is the most valuable skill you took away
from school?
I think analytical thinking is the skill I gained in doing research in school. Being focused is a skill that I needed to
develop. I wasn’t natural at being
focused on something. I think that MIT
taught me communications skills because you always had to defend your work in
front of your professors all the time.
What has the business world
taught you?Patience!
(laugh) It doesn’t come easy. It’s not like you start and take off! You have to be patient, keep doing it and
believe in it, otherwise you aren’t going to make it. Be focused and open-minded.
How do Thai design tastes differ from Western
tastes? Which market is more receptive
to your products? First I think it's important to look at the Thai design market with respect to our region. In this respect, I think we are losing out. We can’t compete in the cheap labor
market. Our labor is more expensive than
China and Vietnam, so we need to develop design,
branding, and all these creative areas to develop our economy. It’s really a new concept here that the last couple of years we’ve tried to create value for our design.
 For Thai design tastes,
I might be able to group us with Asians because in general we are similar except Japan of course, which is a different
taste all together. In Thailand and Asia in general, design has always been a luxury and we still think that way. This is in contrast with Western Europeans, for example. When I was at Maison-Objet I felt that for
Western Europeans design is a way of life, they kind of live with design. Candles look beautiful, pots and pans,
knives, everything is beautiful. Here
it’s not like that. You are surrounded with essentials. Design is something
additional. And because of this, designers want to add more things that aren’t necessary, embellish products, so things become gaudy. The more the merrier is probably a good way
to describe Thai design. (Left: Hid Bag I from natural fiber and discarded bottle caps)
The people
who were interested in buying and importing my designs were from the USA, Holland, and the UK.
I was quite surprised that the French weren’t that surprised about
environmental issues, they are just concerned with pretty, nice design, but not
the environmental side.
After four
or five days you can tell which countries want to import your product. They sit down and talk with you. Most of the people who sat down and talked
were from those three countries. Overall it was a
great experience.
You got your PhD in Design Technology from MIT,
but returned to Thailand after your studies. What can the
U.S. learn from Thai designers? What
can Thai designers learn from the U.S.?
Hmmmm. I think in general, U.S. designers can learn from us in
terms of integrating culture into design.
Integrating the history of skills and craft into design, that’s
something we can offer and I’m pretty convinced of this. We can learn technology, analytical thinking,
but the most important thing I think is the appreciation for the concept behind
design. Thai designers appreciate the
object, but we can learn to appreciate the concept behind the design, not just
the aesthetic. I felt that in the U.S., designers really listen to what
happened before the final design came out, the thinking behind it.
 What limits have you encountered in designing
using recycled materials? How can you
overcome them? What would you like to work on next? The most
difficult thing I am encountering now is the non-standardness. The fact that every piece is different, it’s
not the same. That’s the most difficult
thing to handle with working with reclaimed material. There’s no experiment done before. It’s hard for my team to do it. There are no examples out there for us to
work from. So for now, I put aside some of the money I have to do R&D to
overcome these difficulties and also to train the people who work for
me. I have to love them as much as I
love myself, but they have to be committed.
It’s a pain in the butt, really it is.
But it’s necessary. It’s not like
a master and apprentice kind of thing. I
can’t order them around, it’s a collaboration. A lot of them are my
friends. In Thailand there are a lot of classes and
that’s not to my advantage, but I feel that it’s imperative to treat everyone
as I would treat myself. I have to teach
them to use reclaimed materials, and treat the materials well. I have a lot of crap in my house lying around
to experiment. For example, this year I
used a lot of waste from construction. I
have to do experiments from this wood cut off.
I can make twenty pieces, and then that waste is gone, and I can’t make
it anymore. I can’t make 1000 pieces
because I don’t have that much material.
It’s almost like art work, even though people may not think that, they
can’t imagine that I am working with waste. (Above: Singh, Veeranuch, and team)
 I would
like to work with new materials next.
Most of my work so far has been with wood because it was easiest for me
to do as a starting point, but I started to work with metals, and other
materials beyond wood. (Right: Carpenter scraping glue from discarded flooring and building scraps, courtesy LivingEtc. Magazine, Thailand edition)
Which has been the hardest obstacle to overcome
in your career? In general,
the hardest obstacle is always the client.
The complacency of a client, or the stubbornness. In order to do something new you need two
things, one is support and encouragement.
You never know if something is going to happen when you start to
experiment. Just the other day, I just
had some wood left from a manufacturing plant that produced chairs for export. These pieces have been laying on my desk for
a week until yesterday I thought we could make a table and we made a
table. The other thing is when you have
stubborn clients you can’t reason with them.
In Asia we have feng shui, and sometimes
you can’t overcome their belief in chi and energy. They say “you can’t have the toilet turned to
the street at this angle” and I say, ”Generally that’s true, but in this case,
the toilet is in the back of the building, so what does it matter? To put the toilet at that angle would require
tearing down the structure of the building!” and the client says, ”No, no,
no! Not at that angle!”
 Time Capsule:
What three design pieces would you put in a time capsule today that say
the most about you and the times we live in? I actually
made one piece of furniture that I used for Maison-Objet made of all of my
documents that is sewn by a bookmaker.
It’s essentially a time capsule of my history, what I was thinking at
the time. It’s a story of my life. It’s called the Papi Stool (pictured left), Papi means paper,
and it’s customized for the client. My
friend said we should ask the client to bring his own paper to make the
stool. It’s a history that happened when
I was setting up my business. A letter
to friends, a letter to school, misprints of this, misprints of that…For me a
time capsule is something that’s usable and you can look into the history and
the product itself. My thoughts cover
cell phones, my anger with something. I
write them down and stitch them together in this particular chair.
What motivates you?
My
team. The people I work with. I work with a group of carpenters and my
partner, 8 people all together. They are
the big part of why I keep on doing this.
 What food or dessert best describes your design
style? What was it five years ago? What would you like it to be in the future?
I would say
fusion food describes my design style. A
food that mixes between east and west, it’s fusion food and I enjoy it a
lot. Five years ago, I was still a
student so my food was crappy. Fast food take out every meal! Five years ago, food does not describe me at
all! I was just trying to survive! <laugh>
I like the fusion food for the future because it combines surprising
foods together. I think I will like it
even more in the future. (Right: Singh seated on Lami Singlechair.)
The first thing you notice in a restaurant?
Lighting,
definitely.
Eating what food brings back the best memories?
You might
be surprised! Guess what? Tiramisu.
You know why? The first time I
had it when I was in Germany as an exchange student. We had just come back from Finland and I was with my thirty other
German friends. I was going for my Master’s in Aachen. And that evening, that
beautiful evening, we had dinner in a garden and we were chatting, and suddenly
they brought this big dessert, and I thought it was a brownie and I cut into
it and it was WOW, a tiramisu. Every time I eat this dessert I remember that time. Me and all my blonde friends. And I was the only Asian!
The last piece of art you fell in love with?
Fall in
love…no, but let’s say I was so intrigued when I saw it. This lady in South America stitched pull tabs (from cans)
together to make bags or things like that, it must have been painfully tedious. A picture doesn’t do it justice. I consider this functional art. I think she’s Brazilian, I don’t know her
name, but I saw her work at the Seattle public library.
Your favorite flea market find (or best deal on
something)? Where is it today?
Let me tell
you! I don’t know if you’ve been to Thailand before but we have a very famous market
called Jatujak in Bangkok, I think you’d love it if you came
here. It must be like 15 acres of
everything you can imagine. It might be
20 acres, it’s huge, you can walk for days.
It’s bigger than Maison-Objet by far.
It starts on Friday and ends on Sunday.
That’s my favorite flea market, but the best "flea market find" I got was in Boston.
I got some fiberglass Eames chairs.
They were from an old school. I
don’t think they appreciated it. They
dumped them behind the school. So I took
a taxi, got the chairs and brought them home.
I scrubbed them up and they look great, and I brought three with me back
to Bangkok.
No home is complete without…
Without
pets! You can have partners,
girlfriends, boyfriends, everything. But
pets add a little bit more to the completeness of the home. Some nice little creature running
around. My favorite would be a dog, but
right now I have a stray cat.
You’ll always pick up the magazine if
_________________ is on the cover.
For me if I
see a person, even if I don’t know who it is, I pick up the magazine to find out who
it is and why they are so important to earn a spot on the cover.
Celebrity you’re intrigued by.
Right now,
I can say Madonna, too because while I was in Paris I was trying to get tickets to see
her, but when I was in Seattle I didn’t even care. And I questioned myself WHY DO YOU
CARE?? I should have kicked myself in
the butt when I was in Seattle.
And everyone I know says WHAT AN AMAZING CONCERT! And you’re confirming that to me. See!!
Now I know people are going to think I’m weird or something!! This is all recent though, but intrigue is really the word. (Right: Lini Bench)
Whenever you travel, you always bring
____________________ with you.
This might
sound boring but I always bring a sketch book and swimming trunks!
You can never have too many…
At first I
thought I could never have too many good ideas, but sometimes it’s a bad thing
because you can’t use them all and it gets frustrating. Now I think you can never have too many
assistants! I know, it sounds boring,
but sometimes you just need a lot of people to support and help you and I
always feel, right now anyway, that I can never have too many assistants.
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