Is Unity strength? In this case yes. The Designer / Architects duo Leonidas Trampoukis and Elena Petaloti are winning together, both at work and in private life. Moreover, the sentimental menage between two complementary creatives can be a success has been widely demonstrated in the history of design by couples such as: Charles and Ray Eames, Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas or the most recent Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen, to name a few.

Same source: Thessaloniki, and same background: Columbia University (New York), Aristotle Polytechnic University (Thessaloniki) and Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture (Paris). Transplanted in the USA by choice they splitting between the big apple and the beloved homeland that continues to influence their design sensitivity through the echo of classic geometries typical of the ancient world.

In 2012 they founded LOT: an award-winning company that deals mainly with architectural projects of different scale and complexity characterized by a clean and simple shapes, a peculiarity that we find also in the collections of Objects of Common Interest (OoCI) name under which in 2015 the duo explores the product design focusing on materiality and color.

Architects are not always good designers, this is certainly not the case, but spatial awareness and technical knowledge of materials has helped them to proceed in their experimental and innovative approach. Marble and glass are juxtaposed to acrylic for tables and centerpieces, copper mirrors are supported by aerated cement and stones seem to curve, with Object of Common Interest Elena and Leonidas tell us about the extreme beauty of simple shapes through absolutely brilliant geometries and joints, from objects domestic to still life installations for a ‘‘Less is more’’ 4.0.

How did you guys meet up and what’s your common denominator?

Let’s say that we grew up together, in Greece we used to live a few minutes apart from each other and we had many friends in common but we officially ‘’met’’’ at the end of the school of architecture. After we finished the school in Thessaloniki we both decided to go to Columbia University and follow our mutual interests …. and nothing, after 11 years we are still here with one foot in Greece and one in NY! Our collaboration comes from the fact that we think in the same way, everyone has a strong and personal aesthetic identity but we can complete each other without clashes. Our common denominator are the same priorities, from our personal point of view, as a couple, at work and creative.

Having the same priorities allowed you to open two studies on two different continents, do you remember your starting moment?

There have been quite a few. Surely the first work commissioned to our LOT architecture firm on a project for a Beach club in Mykonos was decisive but equally decisive was the award winning for the best residential development project in Greece in the same year. Instead, Object of Common Interest was born in an organic and informal way without any specific project or commissioned work, it was purely the result of our desire to explore and experiment with forms. Afterward we embarked on the road of product design experiential installations and exhibitions.

What Object Of Common Interest represent for you and why did you choose this name?

OoCI It represents the personal interpretation of the world around us, therefore, our particular vision of things. The choice of this name arises from the interest nourished and from the need to find meaning to common objects facing them in a conceptual framework with the aim of creating meanings and emotions in specific contexts

We saw you in Milan with a collection for MATTERMADE and one for BLOC STUDIO

Yes, both projects derive from ideas and fixations on the concepts of: articulation, balance and formal exercises in order to create objects that have a purpose of use. For Mattermade we produced Relativity, a series of centerpieces where glass shapes seem to sit inside marble bases, touching each other to create a balance without being attached, one can not exist without the other. Instead For Bloc Studio we have designed Totem Tray, a set of trays with volumetric shapes that seem apparently unbalanced, the result of reassembling and recomposition and characterized by an abstract and calibrated aesthetic.

Your aesthetics in 3 words:

Tactile experience, formality, abstract materiality.