inSTUDIO
Greg Lynn

Greg Lynn dislikes the word “function,” a difficult thing to imagine coming from an architect and product designer. It’s not that Lynn’s work is impractical, or purely aesthetic. Rather, describing his work in terms of function belies the complex connections between idea, form, material, surface, process and production method in Lynn’s work: connections that often become layered under physical and visual qualities that often read as contemporary, biomorphic, tactile, intriguing. Lynn’s objects—from various stages in the production process—are arranged loosely on surfaces spanning the length of his office. Some are encased behind mirror-backed bubbles of a shelving unit; others are gathered with their various iterations on shelves. It is clear that modeling is important.

Lynn does much of his modeling in-house, designing on his computer and sending the files to a CNC Mill, a 3D printer or a laser cutter. Other prototypes and materials are sourced from the aerospace industry, sail making factories, places seemingly unrelated to architecture. Indeed, the unexpected seems to be a theme in Lynn’s work. One model, created with numerous interlocking pieces truncated by hollow boxes, is a rounded design for 2011 INDEX Awards “pavilions” that deceivingly come apart and pack into the back of a standard shipping container. A lightweight hanging chair molded with a technique used in the sailing industry can hold over 900 pounds of weight. A tea set for Alessi is metal, but because the liquid is held in an internal pocket separate from the shell to prevent burning one’s hands, it requires no handles. Plastic children’s toys have been sliced, stacked and fused to create shelving systems and table bases. Anyone else could see these numerous, inviting forms and get distracted by the resulting tactile stimulation that would result; indeed, everything is not only thoughtfully designed, but thought provoking. Yet Lynn seems ready to do more, move forward and travel in new directions with design. While his path may be mysterious to others, it is certain that he will remain at the forefront of the contemporary.

-Kana Hammon

How would you describe your aesthetic, from your product design to your buildings?

I’m very invested in the quality of surfaces, [and also] tactility and interaction. For example, how curves and surfaces and the formal language of undulating surfaces can work in a lot of scales. Stylistically, I don’t feel like I have strong preferences. But, always surfaces. Always curves and surfaces in some way.

For me, I like popular culture and engaging in popular culture.  It’s important to me to try to bring the special effects and transportation and entertainment and all that language into the physical world. One of the ways I do that is by using the same media that all those people use.

Most people don’t want architecture to be part of their contemporary life. Most people want architecture to be Spanish, or modern, or Dwell, or whatever style they want—that’s how they look at architecture. They don’t look at it as part of their contemporary lives. Most architects aren’t getting pushed to talk to people the way a filmmaker or an automobile designer would. But for me, it’s really important to be taken seriously as a contemporary thinker.

Why don’t you like the word function?

Too often it’s used to justify things. Architects really use it as a weapon in the sense of saying certain things are possible or impossible based on function. Function is a very amorphous term. It’s very difficult to define if a chair is functional or not. Function…puts you toward your simple solutions, and really, it’s a justification as a way of evaluating things, in my experience.

Would you say that you like to shy away from the simple?

Yeah. I’m trying to find materials where you can use fewer materials. In that way, you might say things get simpler. But, the materials can do more things. I’m trying to make things simpler in the sense of fewer parts and pieces, but more complex in that something has two or three jobs to do.

I’ve heard that you are Frank Gehry’s sailing buddy.

I sailed a bunch as a kid on old wooden boats. I enjoyed maintaining and working on the boats as well as sailing them.  Mostly what I do on my own boat is race, so every Sunday that we are both in town, I go sailing with Frank on his boat Foggy. Both of us love just being on the water. It’s a great way to unwind and talk about the world.

If sailing seems to inform some of your work, would you say that your outside-of-work activities appear in what you do at your studio?

Yes. I’ve always tried to be in a place where I had other creative influences. That’s one of the reasons I like LA. I really like the creative community out here. Out here, with the film industry, with the naval architecture world, the aerospace world, there is a lot of the kind of stuff I like really close by. The architecture scene turns out to be really good. I was just lucky that there were a lot of really good architects coming up at the time.

How did you transition to incorporating the product element into your practice?

I realized that with the product work, you had access to an audience of people that you didn’t have with buildings.

People don’t pay a lot of attention to buildings. Whereas, if you started to do a product, people scrutinized it. It was more of a good place to establish a brand. Also, what I realized with the Vitra chair was that because people sit in it, they really engage with it much more profoundly than with a house, let alone a church or an office building. I got more interested in the intimacy that you have with people through products that you don’t have with buildings—ironically. You would think that the building would be the thing that everyone would notice, but actually, it’s more atmosphere.

What are your predictions for the trajectory of design?

Capital “D” Design, not just architecture, but design in general, is being valued. Right now, the value of design for branding, the value of design for problem solving, the value of design for engineering, is really part of all those fields now. I think design is becoming one of the places where different specialties can talk. Design is a place to broker that whole conversation about engineering, interactivity, social and cultural issues, branding, all of those discussions can now start to happen around design, rather than around marketing, [for example].