Aslı Arıkan Dayıoğlu, who graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a degree and was deemed worthy of many international awards thanks to her creative design stories inspired by unusual details, has been continuing her practice since 2007 under the umbrella of Designist, of which she is the founder. Composed of not only architects but a design team whose artistic side is more dominant, Designist is a design collective that does not repeat itself, aims to take its line to the next level with new ideas and details, and attaches importance to material research. We talked to Aslı Arıkan Dayıoğlu about her perspective on design, her current works and her thoughts on natural stone materials.
How was your inclination towards interior design, what kind of education did you receive?
Aslı Arıkan Dayıoğlu: After my family had restored an old, second-degree historical mansion they bought on the hills of Anadolu Hisarı in 1990, they started working with interior designer Jale Kulin, who had just returned from England. At that time, I was making my university choices and I was at the stage of an important decision. Getting to know and spending time with dear Jale Kulin was a turning point for me. After graduating from the old English High School (today’s Beyoğlu Anatolian High School) in 1994, I went to America for my university education. I was accepted to the Rhode Island School of Design, which ranks among the top three design universities in the world every year, with my portfolio and exam success. The most important feature of this school is that it is one of the rare schools that provide education by combining many branches of art under the same roof. By taking lessons from many departments such as photography, glassblowing, animation, illustration, industrial design, graphics, fashion, painting, you develop your design ability and aesthetic view through many different channels besides your own education. I think that the education I received as a RISD graduate gave me my versatile and extraordinary perspective, the infrastructure for trying to give an artistic touch to the space with some details while creating and designing. I returned to Turkey in 2000 after completing my 5-year education in double major with a diploma in fine arts and interior architecture.
How did you develop your steps to establish your own office? Can we listen to Designist’s founding story from you?
AAD: After returning to Turkey in 2000, I worked at Metex with my beloved Architect Sinan Kafadar for 7 years. Working with an architect who designs the best hotels in Turkey became the second school for me to get my education in this sector. All my knowledge about hotel interiors has developed thanks to my infrastructure. At the beginning of 2007, I left Metex to continue my ceramic and sculpture works, which I started as an amateur for a while, but towards the end of the year I found myself starting a new hotel project again. In September 2007, I established my own office under the name Designist. I worked alone for a while, but as the projects multiplied and grew, I started to include some designer friends in my company. My goal was not only to create a standard project office composed of architects, but also to create a design team whose artistic direction is dominant in order to work together for design stories inspired by unfamiliar data.
That’s why I created the name of the company by deriving the words “artist” and “design”. Sometimes people thought that our company name was an abbreviation of Design-Istanbul. Although this was not the main idea of the name, it made me happy that it was the representation of the city where I was born, lived and tried to promote abroad; I have embraced this meaning of the brand fondly.
What would you say about your design perspective? What do you think are the qualities that make your projects different?
AAD: Designist’s goal has always been to create works with original and innovative ideas, and to carry this line to the next level with new ideas and details that do not repeat themselves. We are still working with this goal. I do not believe that design is shaped by trends. I am one of those who advocate the necessity of catching and creating the spirit of each project, not advancing on the basis of trending styles today, and creating my own style by being inspired by the country, city and culture of the project. In addition, I always attach great importance to material research and development. We like to push the limits of materials while designing. We challenge application companies to obtain folds of fabric from wood, forms made of wrought copper from marble, and curved partition walls made of roller blinds, and we like to experiment together in workshops. In fact, we create the details and interior design data that will form projects with a kind of artistic experimentation. This gives us a lot of excitement as a team.
What kind of process do you follow when you start a new project? What are the elements that you base on while shaping your projects?
AAD: Every project is unique to itself. For this reason, even if the elements in the same cluster are in the design focus of each project, these elements vary according to the project. When we tackle a new project, we first absorb the expectations. Then, we do our own research on these data in order to construct ideas that will make the project special and different. The most important element that is considered in every project is the user. House, hotel, office, shopping mall, whatever the typology of the project, they all have very different dynamics, needs and material choices. This decisive feature affects many things, from what we will inspire in our design to the textures we will start, from what kind of story we will create to the selection criteria of the materials to be used.
What kind of place does natural stone occupy in the material selection of your projects? Which type of natural stones do you prefer?
AAD: While making our natural stone selections in projects, we prefer textures and colors that match the spirit of the project. We do not prefer shiny ones, we especially like to use the more textural form of the stone, where it undergoes technical processes such as patina, acid reduction, sandblasting, burning, honing, which reveals its textures more. By using advanced CNC cutting technology, we use our own designed patterns as wall panels by making the natural stones in the form of plates three-dimensional. For example, for the reception counter of our last hotel project, we are working with a Denizli marble company to obtain the 3D asymmetrical textures produced by copper forging and wood carving techniques on marble, and we have a special sample prepared for our project. Whether marble, granite, travertine etc. natural stone continues to be one of the materials we always like to use in interiors.
How do you see the future of natural stone material? What would you say about the new trends in this material?
AAD: Natural stone, one of the oldest building materials in history, was used for constructive purposes in the space as it was found in nature in the past or roughly hewn, but over time, with the development of technology, it gained different forms and started to be used for different purposes in the space. Whether natural stone is included in the building construction or used as a covering material; the reason for being in the building is not only a necessity, but also a material that comes from nature, is healthy, ecological, provides thermal comfort and has aesthetic quality. Therefore, it has always kept its up-to-dateness in architecture and has received the attention it deserves in living spaces. With the development of technology, natural stone’s weight due to its nature, its potential for staining, and R&D researches and the development of many structural and chemical products and solutions for these have opened many new doors for designers in the use of natural stone. For example, marble becomes lighter by being composited and laminated with another product. It can be used in different sizes on thinner, bendable round surfaces, not as 2-3 cm thick slabs.
Lamartine Hotel
Lamartine Hotel
Lamartine Hotel
Lamartine Hotel
Lamartine Hotel
