AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN MOES OF ORGANIC DESIGN OPERATIVES
The Organic Design Operatives (ODO) are on a mission. This self-described quest is "to help reconnect people with nature in an otherwise tech-centric world. Our plan: study nature, be inspired by nature and create work and goods that celebrate and respect the wonder of nature." What better way to meld the wonders of the natural world with people's everyday lives than through home furnishings. ODO has gotten off to a fantastic start with the introduction of the Arrowroot Collection, their line of Prairie School-inspired home décor. We interviewed John Moes, President and Creative Director at ODO, to find out more about the company, the collection and their principled vision.
Eric: How did Organic Design Operatives start and what attracted you to the Prairie School of design?
John: One day in design school, I was struggling to stay awake in a dark lecture hall, listening to an art history lecture. Suddenly a slide of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin pops up on the screen and I was blown away. Not only was I stunned to learn this place was just a few hours away, I was amazed by the dramatic siting of the house and the way it wrapped around the hill. It looked like nothing I had ever seen. It felt like it was part of the limestone Wisconsin bluffs with the rough cut native stone and simple sand plaster walls, yet it was strikingly modern. I immediately set out for the campus library and checked out a bunch of books on Wright. I grew up in Wisconsin and no one had ever told me that one of the most famous architects in the world lived and worked just hours from where I was born. Ask anyone from Wisconsin, and they are less likely to tell you that they have heard of Taliesin than The House on the Rock, the odd-ball tourist trap a couple of miles up the road.
So that began my love affair with architecture, the Prairie School of Design and organic architecture. I have to say that the only way to become familiar with Wright’s work is to actually interact with his buildings. Too many buildings are just designed to be looked at. Wright’s buildings are designed to be interacted with; they are experiential and they have a profound impact on people who enter. I wanted to understand how he did that, how he designed everything to be so moving. I discovered the principles of organic design that Wright wrote about, which lead me to sustainable design, of which Wright was an early practitioner, on to biomimicry and systems thinking.
These ideas have influenced my entire career. I’ve practiced sustainable design since leaving college through all the twists and turns my career has taken. Organic Design Operatives, or ODO, came about as a collaborative of designers interested in sustainable design and design inspired by nature. As designers, we wanted to be able to pursue any idea we had in whatever design discipline, including graphic design, packaging, architecture, product and furniture design. The common thread for me is the organic design approach that I take to what I do.
ODO is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, out on prairie, of course! We wake up every day and try to create work, either for clients or our own projects, that seeks to reconnect people to nature through design. The Arrowroot Collection is our first furniture collection, which we are very proud of. I’m not a wood-worker by trade, but a designer. Once I have developed an idea and done some prototyping, I work with skilled craftsman and artisans to produce the works. Some things are hand-made, some utilize computer-aided cutting machines, just as the Prairie School was transparent in their use of technology, but sought to make the hand of the craftsperson visible as well.
Eric: Can you give us a little background on the origins of The Arrowroot Collection?
John: The Prairie School, including progressives such as Wright, Louis Sullivan, Walter Burley Griffin and George Grant Elmslie, created an American architecture that reflected our democratic values and shed the baggage of formulaic styles from the past. Rather than mimicking other styles, they wanted a design to grow up and out of the ground according to individual purposes and circumstances, which makes each building unique and of its time and place. In theory, the process creates a unique “style” each time, much like modern art.
It was through the collective making of this new American architecture, from 1900-1920, that a set of common guiding principles began to develop. Later, Frank Lloyd Wright would codify these into the Principles of Organic Design.
Some of the principles:
Unity: The parts are to the whole as the whole is to the parts. This is the key to achieving an organic, harmonious result. Unity is mainly achieved by staying true to the originating idea (the “seed”) and through the use of a consistent grammar, or shape language, in everything from the plan to the furnishings.
Simplicity: Simplicity is a search for the essence of something, not a race to plainness. Wright said, “Five lines where three are enough is always stupidity. Nine pounds where three are sufficient is obesity. But to eliminate expressive words in writing—words that intensify or vivify meaning in speaking or writing—is not simplicity.” (p.36, The Natural House)
Honesty: Respect and celebrate the nature of materials through honest use. Wright wrote, “Bring out the nature of the materials and let their nature intimately into your scheme. Strip the wood of varnish and leave it alone, stain it. Develop the natural texture of the plastering and stain it. Reveal the nature of the wood, plaster, brick or stone in your designs, they are all by nature friendly and beautiful.” (p.56, In the Cause of Architecture)
Wright was a big proponent of learning by doing. So, I decided to design a fictitious project using the principles of organic design. I approached it as a gesamtkunstwerk, or totally integrated artwork, which meant I had to design a house and everything in it as a whole. I sited and designed it as if it is a real house in the woodlands of Northern Wisconsin. You can go to the website and see the Arrowroot Home and Studio and virtually tour it and see the early furniture designs in situ.
Working on this project, I saw first hand how the whole in the end is more than the sum of its parts, as the parts in the way they relate to the whole create a harmony. It is like the way the parts of life don’t really explain how living things seem to vibrate with life.
It turned out so cool that I wanted to see if I could really bring the furniture to life, and if they would feel as harmonious together as they seemed to on paper and in the models.
Eric: What was the design process like for developing the pieces in the collection?
John: The Arrowroot house gets its name from the stable squares and the dynamic 45-degree triangles that make up its grammar, or language of shapes. Naturally, that same grammar is used for the furniture collection.
Each piece in the collection also shares another common attribute, what we call the design seed, or the main ordering idea of the collection. Each piece in the collection unfolds organically from this according to its individual purpose, target sizes, materials, etc.
I typically start on paper, then try cardboard mockups, then back to the paper, then to CAD plans and wood prototypes and then back to paper, until the forms seem right. All the pieces in the Collection needed to work with each other as well to create what Wright called “a sense of repose” when grouped together. People evolved in the natural world where the forms, while almost inconceivably complex, create harmony, so we react positively when we experience something that has developed organically.
Eric: How would you differentiate the Arrowroot Collection from other contemporary-made, period-inspired furnishings?
John: I think the Collection is different from what is in the marketplace in a lot of ways.
What really makes us different from other Prairie or Arts and Crafts type furniture is that we are not trying to just reproduce what others designed a century ago. We are using the principles they used to create new and original forms. Reproductions and antiques are great; I have some of both in my home. But the principles of organic design are just as relevant and versatile today as when they were formed.
We also designed our pieces to work together, down to the table linens, lamp and tiles. Our tables, chairs and stands create a unified, harmonious setting. We even created color combinations to help you achieve the most coordinated look.
I live in a small 1921 bungalow. When I went to furnish it, I tried to get a sofa from one of the large local furniture houses. I had to send it back because I couldn’t get it through the door. I realized that most of the furniture today is being made for the oversized suburban mc-mansions. Minneapolis and other cities in America are chock full of houses from the early 1900s who need furniture that fits. Our pieces are smaller scale and have finer lines than what is available today. We also incorporate storage into many of the pieces so you can make the most of the space you have.
Consider the conventional furniture offerings. Most of that is now made in Asia. Even if the wood isn’t from a dubious source, it may have been put in a non-climate-controlled shipping container for a few weeks. Most of our materials and production happens within a 100 miles of us in Minneapolis. Artisans up the street make the tiles and our furniture is skillfully crafted in Wisconsin.
We chose to only offer linen fabrics, as they are from a renewable resource (flax), wear well long term, breathe and don’t abrade into tiny plastic fibers like poly fabrics will. Our wood products are not yet FSC certified, but all of our hardwoods come from regional wood lots, not from overseas. The shop uses the wood waste for biofuel to heat the facility. Our offices are powered by purchased wind power credits. But there are always more innovations we can incorporate.
You might also ask, why Prairie and not International Style (or Modernism, as it is sometimes called)? As a designer, I respect and understand these ideas, but to me, there is something missing from Modernism, a lack of warmth, individuality and humanity. Chrome is not something that is very democratic; you can’t easily chrome things in your backyard, nor would you want to.
In the end, both of these styles are nearly 100 years old; both are modern in some sense and both are not of the moment. But for me what is exciting is to use timeless principles to create new work that is contemporary.
Eric: What's your favorite work of architecture and why?
John: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin is still my favorite work. First, I am perpetually in awe of how the house and site are integrated. Beyond preserving and celebrating the hill it embraces, Wright designed a pattern for living in which its inhabitants are woven in and out of nature as a matter of daily routine. What a great example of how we can integrate nature back into our daily lives. Second, I am always affected by the sheer beauty of the place—the home, the landscape, the way the views are orchestrated differently for when you are sitting or standing. Finally, for me, Taliesin is like the poems of Walt Whitman or like jazz, a wonderful expression of American democracy. We don’t realize how rare and special such sites are. It is a pure expression of American art and ideals.
Eric: What's next for the Organic Design Operatives?
John: We work in all aspects of design, from graphic design to product design, furniture and architecture. So it is hard to say what will inspire us next or where our work will take us. We would love to design a new line of furniture and already have ideas, but right now we want to get this Collection into people’s homes. We would love to expand into other areas of the home, but first want to see how people react to the Arrowroot Collection as it is now.
We are in the process of designing another house for a lot on a lake in forest in Northern Wisconsin. We will see what arises out of that design process. Could be another line in the making. pm
:: Organic Design Operatives website
:: View and learn more about the Arrowroot Collection here
:: Take a virtual tour of the Arrowroot Home & Studio here
All photos courtesy of ODO
Eric O'Malley is a co-founder and contributor to PrairieMod. He lives with his wife in the Little Red House, a Mid-Century Modern ranch in suburban Chicago. You can email him at eric@prairiemod.com.