Borruso Design: Store, Womb, Shrine, Paradise
For Italian-born architect Giorgio Borruso, the last few years have been somewhat like being sucked into a surreal world of his own creation.
The daring Los Angeles-based experimentalist — equal parts architect, sculptor, theater designer, and branding genius — has been doing retail projects all over the world, building breathtakingly immersive shopping environments which, he says, are “designed to be felt by the body as much as embraced by the mind.”
Clients and Kudos
They’ve certainly been embraced by a lot of minds these days — by the design community with numerous awards, including “Designer of the Year” 2005 by DDI Magazine readers, and by a growing list of high-fashion retail clients on two continents. “We are insanely busy.” It’s a feverish pace he’s able to sustain with boundless energy, a seemingly bottomless imagination, and the invaluable help of his firm’s Mac and PowerBook computers.
The Mac, he says, is the only computer he’s ever felt a kinship with. “I’ve always been fascinated by design that is truly intuitive. From the first time I used it, I knew the Mac was a system in which you discover things by feeling, by using your instincts.
Exploration By Intuition
“Similarly, when people are inside a space we’ve designed, they don’t need to look for a sign, you don’t have to say, ‘okay, the dressing rooms are in the back.’ They don’t need to ask — they just feel. We design the environment as if it was an extension of the body. Just like the Mac environment can be an extension of the designer’s mind.”
Borruso’s instincts run towards organic, curviglinear forms — ring-shaped shoe displays in Fornarina, fitting rooms as translucent cocoons in Miss Sixty, an unraveling ribbon installation in Snaidero’s Los Angeles flagship — that surprise, delight, and defy convention at every turn.
Forms and FormZ
To nurture these unique contours from imagination to execution, his firm relies predominantly on FormZ software. “FormZ is especially useful in our design process because it’s open-ended,” says Borruso projects coordinator Elizabeth Chang. “It allows us to explore and create free from any preconceptions of form.
“The entire Mac atmosphere,” she continues, “is very well suited for the firm’s creative work. There’s an unmatched simplicity and ease in maneuvering graphics and 3D programs.” But the Mac, she emphasizes, is also a nuts-and-bolts business tool. “We are primarily Mac-based, handling everything from basic administrative tasks — project management, correspondence — to technical drawings, rendering, sketching, and three-dimensional work on the Mac. Client presentations are developed and presented on the Mac.”
