you and your subject. Drawing is an aid to personal expression, and when suppressed, it removes the urge to develop a signature “style”, something I was attempting to do in the 1980s and 1990s. The idea is to establish a working method purely based on data exterior to yourself and accessible to anyone. These “stepping-stones”, as I call them, include the type of object (a table, a chair, etc.), its cultural context (history, function), production methods and therefore choice of material, its purpose or the intended location of the object and, above all, for whom the object is being made. Renouncing drawing is about relying on the facts, much like in the same way as a scientist or judge might do. At any point in time or specific spatial context, new facts arise and, consequently, the project must be modified. Utopian schemes are not expressed in my work because I exclude all optimism. What keeps me moving forward is the acquisition of facts or data which I reorganise until a sort of efficient and unified form emerges that momentarily satisfies me.

At every stage, the limits imposed by materials and techniques provide concrete and communicable reference points – common economical considerations. The designer’s drawings and personal style are superfluous once you concentrate solely on the limits of materials, methods and final purpose in the production of an object that fulfils its functions – the very definition of its existence. In Des étagères [Shelves] (2005), for example, the shelves are built at the limit of their physical capacity. Any thinner and they would collapse under normal use. The extremely fine aluminium sheets are designed to bear heavy loads and are precisely assembled. The project was a structural challenge, as to how to create a standing structure using the least amount of material that could support its own weight plus that of books or objects placed on it. This economy of material also implied economy of visual