Designwire Daily: from the editors of Interior Design magazine

10 Questions With…Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger

by Laurel Petriello | Tuesday, October 25, 2011 | 1 Comment

Interior Design recently caught up with Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger of Antenna Design at Knoll’s New York showroom, which kicked off National Design Week with the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt. The designers, who recently launched Antenna Workspaces for Knoll at NeoCon, sat down with us to talk design, travel and career advice.

ID: Tell me, what would be your dream design project?

M – I’d like to design a house. I have no background or knowledge of it whatsoever, but I’d like to attack it.

S – An airplane would be interesting. It’s still transportation, but rather different than trains.

ID: What have been some of your favorite projects?

M – Of course the work we have done with Knoll.

S – Also, our installation work in which we’re often the client, like the Power Flower windows we did for Bloomingdale’s.

ID: Who are the people you admire the most or who have influenced your work?

M – Steve Jobs. Also, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Mario Bellini.

S – I’m a big fan of Achille Castiglioni and, of course, Dieter Rams.

ID: Where do you get your design inspiration from?

S – We really try to understand the context for which we are going to design, particularly if it’s something we aren’t familiar with. Often we design things for which we are not the target group.

M – For the Antenna Workspaces, the one big influence was quite literal. There is a vintage Knoll dining table we have owned for 20 years. When we struggled with one part of the project, we just kicked back and said, “Why shouldn’t it be so simple and elegant like this table?”

S – Again in the Knoll project, there was one other influence that was more on the structural level. We were running on the Upper West Side where there’s still an elevated highway. We looked at the highway structure and saw how it’s supported by the vertical feet. We saw how the vertical and horizontal structures don’t intersect and thought it was a good analogy for the workspaces.

ID: What other projects are you working on?

M – We continue to work on transit projects for [New York's] MTA , but we’re also working on a new train for the Washington, D.C. Metro for 2013.

S – We are also making enhancements to [Knoll's] Antenna Workspaces, but that are not necessarily furniture.

ID: What major design trends have you noted recently?

M – Environmental consciousness really has wide acceptance now. Clients and manufacturers have equally embraced the concept and need. In office, people are moving from cubicles to open space, even in more conservative industries. We’re seeing the work space more as social space instead of isolated cubes.

S – I see a lot more attention to fine craftsmanship and small-scale production—things that have a less industrial feel. There’s a focus on honesty and simplicity in design.

ID: What have been some of the biggest hurdles in your design career?

S – We didn’t do enough analysis on what the client really needed and we did so much extra work just to be sure!

ID: What do you do to relax?

S – We run!

M – We love to eat and drink, too. They go hand-in-hand with running, you know?

ID: Where do you like to travel and what can’t you leave home without?

S – To get out of urban life, we go to the Austrian countryside. For city travel, we love to go to Berlin, London, Tokyo, and Vienna…most of our travels revolve around some sort of architectural interest.

M –. We always pack our running shoes. It’s a great way to discover different cities.

ID: What advice do you have for young product designers just starting out?

M – A piece of advice I was given when I was a young designer is to be both optimistic and opportunistic. Be persistent and stay flexible.

S – Things don’t always go right the first time. Don’t be discouraged.