SMPDO from past to present

Founded in 2013, SMPDO is a Zagreb-based design office that works on various projects ranging from industrial and spatial design to site-specific installations, art direction, and design consultancy. The studio's distinctive identity lies in the intercultural space between elitism and egalitarianism, exclusivity and inclusiveness, avant-garde experiments and highly marketable products.

SMPDO's founder Simon Morasi Piperčić talks about his journey from a Yugoslav-influenced childhood, his experimental design process to his ever-growing partnership with progressive Croatian furniture brand Prostoria and other manufacturers.

I grew up in a small town in northern Croatia, and our house was right next to a forest. We spent most of our childhood building tree houses, so everything probably started there.

I studied Industrial Design in Zagreb and Lausanne. It's difficult to pinpoint the exact pivotal moment, but I've always preferred building three-dimensional objects to drawing or painting. I also recall being impressed by the chairs that my grandmother had in her apartment, Lupina chairs by Yugoslav master modernist Niko Kralj, which were prevalent in Croatian households at that time.

My design process is a messy one, and mostly non-linear. I follow a specific methodology, but it all depends on the complexity of the project. It's difficult to say how often ideas become reality because we do a lot of experimenting, which means that some projects are left as sketches / models or their details are translated into other projects. However, roughly 70% of them become real.

Strain was not initially planned to be a collection; the concept evolved over time and it became one at a later stage. It began as an easy chair with a distinct detail made of interwoven bent steel tubes, which we realised could be used in a variety of different typologies.

However, for an easy chair, I wanted to create a 3D shell that surrounds you, similar to the Eames DSW. It's a complex injection-moulded plastic object. Because the technology is quite expensive, the only option we had was to convert 2D to 3D. A lot of research and development went into this one, and we ended up with a flat belt leather cutout that transforms into a shell when attached to a metal frame.

Mostly business-related...Aside from that, it is important to create a kind of brand out of your design studio — something special, unique, and distinguishable in your work as an author.

Long walks and bike rides.

Being able to achieve a good balance between the two. 

Both. I always have long-term goals, but the journey there is full of failures and small victories that give you the motivation to keep going.  

Revisiting Analogue and Revisiting Factory are two conceptually related projects whose goal was to present new products to an international audience at a time when major trade fairs were closed due to the global pandemic. To put it simply, they were a hybrid of a fair and a digital campaign, with unusual set design for such an event. Revisiting Analogue took place in a forest near Prostoria's factory, whereas Revisiting Factory featured raw timber walls that would eventually become furniture parts. Numen / For Use collaborated on the design and direction.

People and their behaviour, particularly unusual / unpredictable interactions with objects.

Sometime in 2013, Nikola Radeljković of Numen / For Use informed me that they had begun working with a new Croatian design-oriented brand, and that he believes it will be a success. I've always worked on self-initiated projects, so I packed one, showed it to them, and they liked it. That was a Strain easy chair. Strain was widely published and won several prestigious design awards. That gave me confidence and strength for everything that happened professionally in the years that followed.

Large shifts are taking place in almost every aspect of our lives. Of course, this has an impact on spatial typologies and furniture design. For example, the workplace now serves a completely different role. People can work from anywhere, and the workplace has become a personal preference. Some people prefer routines, while others prefer freedom. In some ways, I believe it will be easier to create something unique in the near future, as we will encounter new problems to solve that have not previously existed.

People's habits, socio-cultural changes, and technological innovation will always have an impact on furniture and spatial design. Sustainability is already playing a big role in it, with more and more brands becoming part of a circular economy. We should create high-quality, lightweight products using as many recycled or recyclable materials as possible. High-end design objects are already sustainable in some ways, as they have a long lifespan and emotional value. A friend of mine, for example, inherited a Knoll lounge chair from his grandfather, which means that chair has been in use for more than 70 years. 

Many of the materials developed recently are either upcycled or recycled. That, I believe, is the only way forward. Several companies now recycle fabrics to make high-density boards that can be used as tabletops or PET bottles to make sound-absorbing panels. Production-wise, the future looks promising.