The designer and artist Frédéric Saulou works the slate with elegance, agility and knowledge creating unique pieces for home environments

Domestiquer (Domesticate) is a project that aims to reintegrate heritage with the author’s design process, fuelled by encounters of creative and economic thought with partners and collaborators.

Frédéric Saulou explore and combine the industrial and artisanal units of production in a given region in order to design a constructive, social and meaningful project. This gives rise to new ways of applying mineral matter and stone craftsmanship, which are constantly evolving. Through my work, I study the adaptability of hybrid objects to the domestic world fuelled by transmitting thoughts and knowledge.

The means of artisanal and industrial production inexorably influence form and are the technical and aesthetic extension of the shaping of the object, a reflection of a mastered and successful piece of work that must last and adapt over time. From there, all the pieces strive towards a fair, mastered, simple and striking design, giving pride of place to raw materials and tools. In this way I combine the tools of production and create parallels between the arts and the digital dimension. The result is the equation of techniques and constraints to strive for a volume created at two speeds but simultaneously, allowing for the projection of volumes to be interpreted in two ways.

The use of traditional materials is no coincidence. In the past, and still today, these materials have proved their worth and are firmly present in history. However, as time goes by and materials and know-how multiply, these minerals sometimes considered as “poor” become dated and I try to evoke the origin of their use. As they were the basis of modern home designs dating from a certain era, I like to modestly pay homage to that era by reinventing them and giving them a new function. By redesigning their original function, they become objects and are included in domestic spaces.Architectural references are part of this archeological work which creates a mise en abîme of the heritage of symbols of construction in symbiosis with the codes of modern works.

The ensemble therefore creates a strong identity at the crossroads of modern objects and historical roots. The result is a mastered, simple and raw aesthetic, controlled but also naturally freed. The creations are made from natural resources, some are sometimes transformed by man to form a balance. The inspiration for the creations comes from architectural codes being used as a creative lever.
My work must be timeless, like a lasting, solid construction. Through simple but constructed volumes, the immersion of material in space is pure, as if the object had always been there, as if it were part of the walls.

I prefer a visual, obvious and sometimes primitive style but I find it to be reassuring and striking. The round and decorative forms respond to the straight and pure lines by alluding to the periods of ornamentation to the streamlining of space of the 90s. The tools and lines can be interpreted as the new, modern but elementary, architectural forms, just like monolithic and geometric sculptures. The sparing use of resources is clearly evident in a monumental dimension reflecting the idea of the scale of space where habitat and environment mix.