Designer's Voice Neuland

What kind of contribution can a designer make to Green Design in the furniture industry?
Green Design and sustainability are terms that are extremely open to interpretation and often exploited for marketing purposes. Avoiding products altogether is the only true form of “Green Design”, everything else can only ever be a compromise. Even so, there are many different ways in which designers can make a contribution. The enduringness of the design and product is one crucial factor. When a piece of furniture crosses the threshold between a fashionable accessory or lifestyle item and a potential heirloom, that’s definitely a big contribution. On top of that, a designer can of course also decide who he offers his designs to. Nils Holger Moormann is our hero in that respect: the company has everything made by manufacturers in the immediate vicinity. And that’s not just a marketing trick, it’s a principle the company really lives by, and we’re more than happy to support an attitude like that with our ideas.

These days a growing number of trends co-exist alongside one another. Is there any one dominant trend in interior design or product design right now?
We can only speak for furniture design, where the trend is increasingly towards so-called “authored design”. A prominent designer, together with his personal form of creative expression, is used as a marketing factor. Accordingly, there are trends like the Urquiola, Bouroullec or Massaud trend. In creative terms, there is no single evident dominant tendency, and purist understatement is living in peaceful co-existence with baroque opulence.