Fabio Caeran is a 32-year-old designer fresh out of Iuav in Venice. The collaboration between the designer and Atelier del Legno led to the birth of Caudex, a new way of understanding wood and the waste produced in making doors and furniture. A new material, with the consistency of a sheet of paper, the result of the common sensibility towards the recovery, reuse and remanufacturing of waste material. A material whose applications can find use in a variety of fields, from packaging to upholstery to design.
Fabio Caeran is a 32-year-old designer fresh out of Iuav in Venice. The collaboration between the designer and Atelier del Legno led to the birth of Caudex, a new way of understanding wood and the waste produced in making doors and furniture. A new material, with the consistency of a sheet of paper, the result of the common sensibility towards the recovery, reuse and remanufacturing of waste material. A material whose applications can find use in a variety of fields, from packaging to upholstery to design.
How cool is Caudex?
It’s one of those cool ones that ride the wave, the ones that seem to meet the market even before they are presented, don’t you think? Come on, you can’t start with a question like that, you know how it is: “ogni scarrafone è bello a mamma soja,” as that songwriter used to say, and anyone who goes through a moment of creation knows very well the affection that arises toward what has been produced, materialized, concretized. Going from thought to something concrete generates these feelings and is often addictive.
How did the idea for a product like Caudex come about?
It wasn’t really born-let’s say I stumbled upon it. I can’t say it’s a project, especially not a design project, but with this material I have done projects and fulfilled expectations of different clients. It all started when, out of personal desire, I wanted to cover the frame of my bicycle with wood; the resulting research into processes and materials led me to deepen my knowledge of the wood sector and some of its players. With one company in particular, the collaboration became closer and, through a path whose goal was anything but, we came across the possibility of recovering wood processing waste to create a new material. That was it.
Recovering scrap to create a product that is still quality: is this the design approach of the future?
In recovery, reuse and remanufacturing I see great possibilities. Many more and less famous products have arisen from the desire to reuse components, parts, scraps or offcuts. However, I do not believe they are the exclusive avenues for future designs; greater efficiency or lower consumption are, trivially, equally valid and viable avenues. A greater and better combination of skills and professional figures in the design process I believe is the key to a good approach to the design of the future.
Currently, how does the market relate to the preservation and use of environmental resources?
The market is changing; people are paying more attention to what they eat and drink for example. New issues related to environmental protection are beginning to raise awareness, but we have not yet reached the realization of how much weight a design that takes the entire LCA into account or that places less polluting materials and processes than the previous version or that of competitors can have on the product.
Design is not “to draw”. Che cos’è per te?
As a lecturer in college used to tell it, “Even children draw (and in this regard I review today a nice article in Vice from last year) but if we talk about designing, you have to be a professional to do it.” A perhaps simplistic and provocative statement but certainly an interesting one. I think of design as the discipline that is able to solve problems through design; put like that it may suggest decidedly broad fields of interest and application but, in fact, it is.
Apart from design, what are your passions? Or are you a designer to the bone?
I am a designer to the bone and if I could I would redesign the world. But around the bone there is also a lot of “flab,” and in this there is room for design and computer science (lots of computer science) but also cooking and biking…
Can you give us some hints about your future plans?
Right now I plan to go on vacation! But I have possible collaborations in my head and I have several projects in my drawer that have taken way too much dust. I don’t like to disappoint expectations so the only thing I can say is that I will continue to do what gives me joy.
How do you see yourself in 10 years?
A little fatter, a little wiser, always passionate.
Tenacity, passion, competence-what does it really take to achieve one’s goals?
Intelligence and perseverance, in addition to what you have suggested. I have not yet decided whether or not to mention luck on these occasions, sometimes I tell myself no, sometimes yes. I like to believe that it is a matter of merit for what we gain or lose, but probably the truth lies in between. There are events that do not depend on us, for the remaining ones we can only give our best.
What is the opportunity that young people should seize today?
All, honestly all opportunities. Avoid having to regret anything, choose carefully what to devote yourself to, but give everything. If you haven’t yet figured out what you are voting for, wait but without sitting on your hands, indeed, there is to work twice as hard or three times as hard if necessary, until you are sure you have found what you like to do, what you no longer want to stop doing. It will be what you succeed in.
