VICTOR MANUEL * `Designer * Independent Design Researcher A PROPOSAL FOR A NEW DESIGN MOVEMENT
INTERSTÍCIO investigates the space between things, between planes, materials, states and perception.
An object should not reveal everything at once.
SILENCE → LATENCY → INTERACTION → REVELATION
OBJECT → FURNITURE → SPACE → ARCHITECTURE → BEYOND
A line that continues.
ORIGIN
QUIMERA GEOMÉTRICA · 2017
The origin was not a form. It was a question.
QUIMERA GEOMÉTRICA began in 2017 as an independent design investigation by Victor Manuel.
It explored whether objects, furniture and space could share a coherent identity without depending on the repetition of a single form.
Geometry gradually ceased to be merely a formal expression. It became structure, rule and method.
What began as an investigation into form started to reveal something larger: a language capable of persisting through different objects, functions and scales.
At the time, that language had no name.
QUIMERA GEOMÉTRICA investigated the possibility.
ÓRBIS made it operational.
ÓRBIS
WHEN THE INVESTIGATION BECAME A SYSTEM
QUIMERA GEOMÉTRICA established the question.
ÓRBIS transformed the investigation into an operational design system.
A shared grammar could now generate different objects while preserving a recognisable identity.
The investigation was no longer about designing one object.
It was about discovering what could remain when the object changed.
INSIDE ÓRBIS - THE GRAMMAR
A language requires rules
ÓRBIS GRAMMAR codified the principles that allowed the system to generate different typologies without depending on the repetition of a specific form.
Planes, transitions, micro-bevels, angular encounters, material continuity, light and constructive integration formed a shared vocabulary.
The rules did not determine the object.
They determined the relationships that gave it identity.
The language could therefore transform, adapt to function and change scale without losing its recognisability.
Different objects.
The same grammar.
SILENT / REVEAL
WHEN THE OBJECT LEARNED NOT TO REVEAL EVERYTHING AT ONCE
ÓRBIS established a grammar of formal continuity.
SILENT / REVEAL introduced something different:
time, interaction and transformation.
The object was no longer understood only through its form.
Its identity could also exist in the transition between states.
SILENCE → LATENCY → INTERACTION → REVELATION
What was hidden became as important as what was visible.
BEYOND FORM
WHEN THE RELATIONSHIP BECAME THE SUBJECT
SILENT / REVEAL changed the direction of the investigation.
The defining element was no longer only the geometry of the object, but what existed between its states, planes, materials and moments of interaction.
The interval was no longer an absence.
It became an active part of the design.
A joint could become a threshold.
A separation could become identity.
A hidden interior could become revelation.
A transition could become experience.
The investigation was moving beyond the object.
OBJECT → FURNITURE → SPACE → ARCHITECTURE
FROM GEOMETRY TO CONSTRUCTION
Making the language buildable.
A language cannot remain only an idea.
If its relationships are real, they must survive materials, tolerances, connections and assembly.
ÓRBIS therefore moved from geometric intention to constructive resolution.
GEOMETRY → PRECISION → CONNECTION → ASSEMBLY
"The geometry of ÓRBIS is not applied after construction. It is resolved through construction."
PROTOTYPE / MAKING ÓRBIS REAL
From relational grammar to physical construction.
INSIDE ÓRBIS - PERCEPTUAL CONTINUITY
An ongoing field of experimental verification.
ÓRBIS IS NOT PRESENTED AS A FINISHED ANSWER.
IT IS A SYSTEM DESIGNED TO CONTINUE ASKING QUESTIONS.
THE DESIGN HETERONYM
Every system needs someone willing to question it.
Afonso Lacerda is the design heteronym created by Victor Manuel as a critical interlocutor throughout the development of Quimera Geométrica, ÓRBIS and the research that followed.
He questions decisions, challenges assumptions, raises technical and conceptual doubts and occasionally becomes irritating enough to force the investigation forward. .
He does not design ÓRBIS. He questions it.
DESIGN PROPOSES.
LACERDA ASKS WHY.
VICTOR MANUEL
Portuguese Designer · Independent Design Researcher
WHAT REMAINS TO BE PROVED? → WHAT REMAINS TO BE TESTED?
DRAWING THE LANGUAGE
Sketches · Studies · Process
INTERSTÍCIO
A PROPOSAL FOR A NEW DESIGN MOVEMENT
The territory existed before it had a name.
QUIMERA GEOMÉTRICA began the investigation.
ÓRBIS transformed it into a system.
SILENT / REVEAL introduced time, interaction and transformation.
But something else had been emerging throughout the process.
Not a form.
Not a collection.
Not a style imposed upon objects.
A territory between things.
Between planes.
Between materials.
Between visible and hidden.
Between silence and revelation.
Between object, furniture, space and architecture.
That territory now has a name.
INTERSTÍCIO
THE LANGUAGE OF THE BETWEEN
INTERSTÍCIO does not begin with the object.
It begins with the relationship.
A plane does not exist alone.
It exists in relation to another plane.
A material does not simply meet another material.
The encounter becomes part of the design.
A joint can become a threshold.
A separation can become identity.
A hidden interior can become revelation.
An interval can become space.
INTERSTÍCIO investigates what happens between these conditions.
PLANE → INTERVAL → PLANE
SILENCE → LATENCY → INTERACTION → REVELATION
OBJECT → FURNITURE → SPACE → ARCHITECTURE
OTHER WORK / INDEPENDENT EXPLORATIONS
CONTACT
VICTOR MANUEL
Designer
Independent Design Researcher
Portugal
d.ervictormanuel@gmail.com
A LINE THAT CONTINUES.