How did your interest in design come about?

From an early age, like many of my generation, I was attracted to the design of cars, motorcycles, planes … The 60s and 70s marked the imagination and produced authentic icons, still celebrated today. Later I discovered that design brought me closer to what can be considered an approach to deepen the knowledge of man: some objects tell his story, dictate the costume and decline dreams. Some objects go beyond the utilitarian, functional or aesthetic sense, becoming a mirror of an era in which man is the central element with all his emotions, aspirations and relationships.

Who were your teachers?

Many names that have helped me to love this profession, among these I want to remember Raimond Loewy, Franco-American designer who dictated the evolution of products made in the USA, Tapio Wirkala, Finnish master who draws his poetics from the forms of nature, and our Giorgetto Giugiaro, witness of an Italian design that has become internationally recognizable. I should also mention some architects, whose teaching invites us to reconsider spaces and our habits to inhabit them, such as Mies van Der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright, very different in their design concept but equally significant in the evolution of the spatial concept.

In these forty years of profession, how has the world of product design changed?

I was born with pencils and drawing board and today we design in augmented virtual reality. In these forty years there has been an unprecedented acceleration of cultural, technological and scientific development. Mine is a generation that has experienced a moment of unique transition, from a materially tangible reality to one in which existences float without distinction, fluid, between the physical and the digital world. Today objects are only a contour, the real goal of design is to create a life experience, tools to enrich our daily lives in the balance between illusion and reality. 

What is the role of the BCF design studio in relation to the business world?

The goal is to create a narrative made of products that tell and relate to the public. Through these stories, the company measures its aptitude to be the protagonist of its time. It is a complex job that requires an integrated design approach capable of contextualising the products in the best possible way to enhance their intrinsic character.

The challenges of tomorrow and BCF design

The challenge is clear: design must become a bulwark of human experience. with all its sensitivity and fragility. “Human Attitude, Italian Style”, to quote the studio’s motto, and to clarify that design lives on emotions, memories, experience and relationships. In a world increasingly constrained by algid algorithms, design will make the difference.