Based in Arles, Samy Rio brings craftsmanship to industrial design as a means of improving the quality of his designs while maintaining a keen handle of the countless sustainable pieces he produces. Hand-made designs and industrial processes are often seen as being opposing yet interdependent, yet in bringing the two together, the young designer has breathed new life into neglected traditions of craftsmanship while curbing the pull of mass production. Samy Rio taps into his training in cabinetmaking and industrial design to foster his own hybrid view of creation and put it to the test.

For the past five years, the ENSCI-Les Ateliers graduate has produced a prolific body of work with ingenious takes on ways to use bamboo, glass, ceramics, and, more recently, invasive plants. Far from stopping with the initial output of his research, Samy Rio then applies his findings to the design of new materials and products. Simple and sleek in appearance, Samy Rio’s pieces question the role design plays in exploring the theoretical underpinnings of sustainable practices by combining materials and processes

Samy Rio won the 2015 Villa Noailles Design Parade award. The award paved the way for Samy Rio to then embark on a series of prestigious residencies – such as Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto and the NTCRI in Taiwan – and to collaborate with the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres, the CIRVA (International Centre of Glass and Plastic Arts), and the Galerie kreo. Through these different experiences working with glass, ceramics, wood, and bamboo, he has continued to explore the interactions between craftsmanship and industry, tradition and new tools, as a means of analysing the ways we produce objects as much as the objects themselves.