Q&A with Sam Hecht
This week we have released Twin Stopper by Sam Hecht of Industrial Facility. Simply clever, Twin stopper has asymmetrical ends to deal with varying gaps between doors and floors in a compact way. Whatever you are using now, this will certainly be more elegant, not to mention safer.
Could you tell us about the philosophy behind your work?
The philosophy is simple. The world we inhabit; the people who inhabit it; the things people use to inhabit it. None of these are better or worse than the other. They are all equal. When you reach this realisation it means that a chair is no more or less important than the person sitting on it, or the room it sits in. So for a doorstop, it should relate to the door as much as relating to the room and the feet walking past.
What are your influences?
Conversations are undoubtedly my biggest influences. I have many and continue to use them as a basis for reasoning.
What was your inspiration behind the Twin stopper?
One can say a doorstopper is extremely banal. It has been with us for so long. But, what can often frustrate people about them is that the wedge inevitably sticks out too much because of the varying gap between the door and the floor, and you trip over them. To generate the form, I took a regular doorstop, cut it in half and attached both ends at right-angles. Depending on the gap size, you can turn it and the doorstop will always stay close to the door.
How do you think the Twin stopper relates to Droog?
The way I like to think of Droog is that they interject with issues of everyday life—dealing with doorbells, tablecloths, and now a doorstopper. I like the unpretentious side of Droog, and I like that one does not have to think too much about buying the Twin stopper because it is affordable. It’s a small interjection – nothing too dramatic – but it at least it makes a little bit of improvement on what’s gone before.
How do you see that your work relates to various design trends today?
There are many products that keep coming out where their starting point is novelty. It seems designers have forgotten the original purpose of what they are designing. I personally tested the doorstop for over a year. It is what it is because of how it works and not all because of how it looks.
Do you have a message to young product designers?
In some ways, it’s better to apply one’s mind to forgotten objects–the things we “use” everyday, rather than the things we “look at”. The effect on the world is of improving it ever so slightly without using a lot of resources. I think Droog has always been an inspiration to young designers because they negated the bourgeois in favour of democratic creativity. Young people could finally relate to a type of design that related to them as individuals.
Twin stopper is now available in red and black silicone at Droog Amsterdam and on Droog’s online store for € 12.50 for a set of two.
