We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Nikolaos Baskozos about their original and creative Public Trash Can design work. Nikolaos Baskozos is an award-winning industrial designer, that makes our world a better place with their original public trash can works.
Nikolaos Baskozos ("NB") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work Pithos Public Trash Can. Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
NB : This concept is part of a design series that consist an ongoing work in progress regarding street furniture with abstract, primitive forms. This particular design refers to the form of a pithos, an ancient Greek terracotta jar.
NB : To publicize it and ideally sell or lease the rights to a company that will eventually produce it.
NB : It was a pursuit of inspiration. It is a part of an ongoing project which made its first entry for the Pan-Hellenic Street Furniture Competition for the Dodecanese Islands (2018). It’s evolution led to a series of street furniture designs.
NB : This design is not being produced or used by another company. My intension and ambition is to collaborate with a company to produce it.
NB : A desire to explore a traditional form, and to reuse it with an analogy to it’s initial properties. An ancient terracotta jar was used for storing food or other things, while a trash can is also a temporary storage space for litter.
NB : The Spanish company “Escofet” has a great collection of works fabricated with the same material, so I would say that their collection is a loose inspiration.
NB : Companies that could fit this design in their collection.
NB : “Pithos” (/ˈpɪθɒs/,[1] Greek: πίθος, plural: pithoi πίθοι) is is the Greek name of a large ceramic storage container which is the main inspiration behind this design.
NB : Hand drawing for initial sketches of the idea, 3d software for working on the idea and presenting it.
NB : The reference to the historic form of a pithos is fairly apparent, though it is not a copy of it. It feels as something familiar, but at the same time it is not. It generates and intrigues a memory.
NB : Fiber reinforced cementitious mortar makes the realization of designs like this possible because it has a ceramic quality. It provides high mechanical and aesthetic performance in small thicknesses.
NB : I was mostly influenced by ancient Greek vernacular forms, while looking for an appropriate form for a contemporary bin.
NB : The biggest challenge was to find an appropriate vernacular form for a contemporary bin and to achieve with it a triggering of a memory recollection and not a mere replication.
NB : Having technical and financial obstacles for its fabrication, I considered submitting “Pithos” as an opportunity to communicate it and publicize it as a 3d visualization. Hopefully that would lead to a collaboration with a company that has the means to produce it.
NB : My interest in furniture design grew even further because I realized that I could materialize ideas in an abstract manner, without having to worry so much about the technical and legal aspects of architecture.
