Making the World a Better Place with Design
Martin Bergmann, Gernot Bohmann, and Harald Gründl met one another during their studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In 1995 they formed the design collective EOOS. The trio counts among Austria’s contemporary design pioneers and is one of the international figureheads for Austrian design.
There’s pretty much nothing that EOOS hasn’t designed. Their works include products, furniture, interiors, and shop concepts. And their client list is like the who’s who of the fashion and furnishing sector: Adidas, Alessi, Armani, Carl Hansen, Duravit, MatteoGrassi, Poltrona Frau, Walter Knoll, Zumtobel, and many more. They are analytical designers who refer to the everyday or archaic rituals, to intuitive images and mythological stories. The results are consistent, poetic and reduced in their formal language.
Their works also search for answers to global questions. The aim is to generate new ways of thinking through design.
“We see design as a poetical [sic] discipline which oscillates between the archaic and the high-tech,” say the designers.
They expressed this, for example, in an interview with the daily newspaper Die Presse, which they gave in the framework of the 2012 exhibition “Tools for the Design Revolution” in designforum Vienna: “The Open Space corner shower, which we developed for the manufacturer Duravit, is for those with a higher income. But we reveal that it is possible to design a bathroom with radically less space.
So it’s a solution that affects everyone in a greater context. Because cities need to densify in the future, and lifestyles will also have to change. In the segment where we primarily work we have the opportunity to develop prototypes for new lifestyles. And that leads to a heightened awareness of a new way of thinking.”
"Products always need to have a systematic context."
An exemplary project is their concept for the completely self-sufficient, compact and mobile toilet called the “Blue Diversion Toilet” – which also Bill Gates highly praised.
“An aspect of the concept was that the
toilet should also be attractive enough that it can be used in both
developing countries as well as here in Europe,” state the designers and
continue to explain the technical approach: "It’s a toilet that works ‘off the grid’. That means that no
electricity or water are inserted into the cycle. And nothing comes out.
It is like being in space."
To date EOOS has been awarded 15 technical patents and more than 130 international distinctions, among them the acclaimed Italian design prize “Compasso d’Oro”, the “Red Dot Award” Best of the Best, the “Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany”, and the “IF Product Design Award” in gold. In 2015, on the occasion of twenty years of creative work, MAK – Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art showcased the work of EOOS in their first major solo exhibition, which was accompanied by the monograph “by: EOOS”.
