Completely Design | A reflection on the future of design

The Salon Complètement Design returned to the Old Port of Montreal on March 14, with the same ambition to be a crossroads for artisans, thinkers and traders in the industry. For its second edition, the organizer of the event, Index-Design, and its director, Sandra Heintz, entrusted the scenography to the architect and teacher Jean Verville, from the School of Architecture of Laval University.

We cannot begin this exchange by ignoring your costume. Tell us why!

Jean Verville: We wanted to be consistent in what we proclaim and make Complètement Design an event that is completely circular. The boxes, the panels: everything presented here will be reused. […] Adidas is expected to turn plastic bottles into jacksuit. Rather than hoping that it will be done elsewhere, while clearing our conscience with pseudo-eco-responsibility, why not reuse our materials and packaging locally? This is why we decided to wear our packaging and protective foam today, as an allegory of this intention.

Speculative visions is the theme of the event. What form does this guideline take in design and architecture?

JV: For me, speculative architecture and design means thinking differently to find solutions. The market has changed, conditions are no longer the same. The community needs a boost to view the future from a positive perspective. If we don’t use all these creative minds to create a better world, we might as well stop the machine!

And what emerges from this reflection?

JV: It mainly concerns the rehabilitation of abandoned objects. In the School of Architecture laboratory, one of the projects involved repurposing abandoned oil platforms into aquaculture farms. There are 10,800 unused platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. It is enormous ! Another of our projects consists of thinking about ways to create collective and affordable housing under bridges. Even if it shakes up a lot of people in the process, we can, as architects or designers, use our imagination to create something else and open ourselves up to other ways of doing things.

Does the design community feel this urgency to review the parameters in which it has evolved?

Sandra Heintz: Absolutely. The questioning of circularity is at all levels and particularly among building professionals who navigate in an environment where the carbon footprint is significant. Whether for slow or mass, the architect and the designer look for the product which has an environmental conscience and which has been designed to do less damage to the planet. They know they can help make a difference and everyone wants to do well, but do we have the tools? One thing is certain, there is awareness, and that is why we must set up this platform for discussion between creators and exhibitors.

Are these constraints drivers for creativity?

JV: If you work in your slippers, it’s not stimulating. We cannot bury our heads in the sand and tell ourselves that everything is beautiful. There is less and less labor, the consumer has less money and he is not ready to empty his piggy bank to pay for things that are sometimes of the order of greenwashing. I hope that today, we will have succeeded in de-inhibiting the discussion between creatives and the market world a little in order to tell each other the real business.

Speculative visions : leave the living room

Complètement Design borrows from the museum formula, a thematic and filtered framework which seeks to distinguish itself from the formulas in which trade shows normally operate. Through its theme, Speculative visions, the event questions: how to activate the imagination in professional practice to better nourish the design world and contribute to enriching the future of the planet? This omnipresent questioning is also present among the exhibitors who have reduced the number of objects or creations presented to keep only the most relevant.

“We really wanted designers and architects to adopt a different relationship with a trade show-type event. Generally, it’s the abundance of products. We rather invited the exhibitors to ask themselves what they could show with a defined number of products, by choosing those which have a stronger component of innovation and circularity”, mentions the director of Index-Design, Sandra Heintz.

Visit the Index-Design website

Selected objects

In connection with the Guide 300, its annual publication of addresses and references in design, Index-Design presents nine local designers to follow closely. The latter, for the occasion, materialized the theme with an object of their own.