Interviews with Nikolaos Baskozos

To publicize it and ideally sell or lease the rights to a company that will eventually produce it.

It was a pursuit of inspiration. It is a part of an ongoing project which made its first entry for the Pan-Hellenic Street Furniture Competition for the Dodecanese Islands (2018). It’s evolution led to a series of street furniture designs.

This design is not being produced or used by another company. My intension and ambition is to collaborate with a company to produce it.

A desire to explore a traditional form, and to reuse it with an analogy to it’s initial properties. An ancient terracotta jar was used for storing food or other things, while a trash can is also a temporary storage space for litter.

The Spanish company “Escofet” has a great collection of works fabricated with the same material, so I would say that their collection is a loose inspiration.

Companies that could fit this design in their collection.

“Pithos” (/ˈpɪθɒs/,[1] Greek: πίθος, plural: pithoi πίθοι) is is the Greek name of a large ceramic storage container which is the main inspiration behind this design.

Hand drawing for initial sketches of the idea, 3d software for working on the idea and presenting it.

The reference to the historic form of a pithos is fairly apparent, though it is not a copy of it. It feels as something familiar, but at the same time it is not. It generates and intrigues a memory.

Fiber reinforced cementitious mortar makes the realization of designs like this possible because it has a ceramic quality. It provides high mechanical and aesthetic performance in small thicknesses.

I was mostly influenced by ancient Greek vernacular forms, while looking for an appropriate form for a contemporary bin.

The biggest challenge was to find an appropriate vernacular form for a contemporary bin and to achieve with it a triggering of a memory recollection and not a mere replication.

Having technical and financial obstacles for its fabrication, I considered submitting “Pithos” as an opportunity to communicate it and publicize it as a 3d visualization. Hopefully that would lead to a collaboration with a company that has the means to produce it.

My interest in furniture design grew even further because I realized that I could materialize ideas in an abstract manner, without having to worry so much about the technical and legal aspects of architecture.