I am a designer who explores the matter, appropriates it and gives it back to the world in the form of objects and furnishings.

I was born in Rome in 1967. Design soon came into my life as an instinct and turned out in the most direct way, making me want to shape beloved and accurate objects. The practice of restoration and studies in sociology led me, later, to see in the profession of designer a faber of the relations between man, things and the world.

I live design as an alchemy of nature and hi-tech. I practice form not as an aesthetic invention, but as the result of a process that is measured with the constraints of the material and pushes them further.

I design with any material, wood and glass, metal and ceramic, contaminating them with technology. Each material is a map to follow, letting oneself be guided by its signs, following its implicit directions and revealing those that are possible and yet to be written. In this path, the know-how of the companies with which I work become a means and a boundary to explore and expand as much as possible.

I pursue a beauty that communicates the unexpected. I do not plan to respond to a coded need. I start from common elements to reinvent gestures. Of every object I take care of the whole design, including communication.

Courtesy Photo by Crippi

Awards

Community

I believe in design as a community and a tool for shared growth. This is why I am active in the world of associations that represents the culture of the project. I adhere to the ADI since 2008 and I chaired the Lazio delegation from 2015 to 2017. I led In Forma Azione association from 2001 to 2004.

Teaching

I have been teaching industrial design at IED, La Sapienza University in Rome and AANT, I am committed to transmitting not only the design tools, but also the values ​​of a profession and a culture that, I firmly believe, can change the world.

They say about me

- "Paolo D'Arrigo does not observe reality: he listens to it to discover its value, interpret it and translate it into a project". Paola Carimati

- "In the design of Paolo D'Arrigo the method and the design approach win over the form". Domitilla Dardi

- “Paolo D'Arrigo's works give the perception that really everything in nature can become design”. Paolo Casicci

- In Paolo D'Arrigo's design I see the imperceptible vibration that one catches when looking long at a drop of water". Federico Pietranera