Mound
Mound is a design and fabrication house, born in a global pandemic and designing with end-times flair. We concern ourselves with Post-Lifestyle design: objects blind to feeble trends and bottomless pit consumption. To those early modernist shamans, who said design can better someone’s life and nourish the interior self, we listened and learned.
Mound designs for the tomb-set society, those discerning old souls who suspect “new” was invented to sell shoes and cereal. Mound is a skull stretched across the periphery of your living room. Mound produces grave goods you can live with.
Mound is based in Richmond VA on Powhatan land.
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Q&A with Mound
Where did you grow up? How did it influence you?
Washington DC in the 90's and 00's. Grew up surrounded by monuments, so naturally had a fascination for what and how we build to remember. Somehow Funk slid in there, between the granite and cast bronze, just being around I guess, osmosis.
In a world overflowing with objects, why continue making new things?
The Design world can't ignore the calling for art to respond to its time. You make things to live in the moment you're in. I like Design that has the capacity to live alongside those other objects as a companion, rather than require a whole new "look."
What design movement, current or historic, do you think is the most overrated and why?
Hot take but Art Deco might have been the most poorly made design work in history. The VMFA here in Richmond displays their Art Nouveau collection right next to the Deco, and it is spotless, perfect, aging much better in comparison. To give Deco some credit, it was true experimentation: new methods, new tools, new tastes. But it's hard to see its mistakes coming up again and again even today. The 20th century has got a lot to thank for the movement, thank you Art Deco, let's all put you to bed please.
What’s your favorite material to work with and why?
Veneer. Its delicacy, economy of material, and creative potential. It's the closest a woodworker can get to being a bookbinder. There is so much information in wood. Structurally, when glued together as ply, this information becomes sturdy and can encode volume. It really is such a beautiful invention.
Tell us about something that inspires you.
Literally everything. What we humans spend our time doing is just a small chunk of this vast chaos we are surrounded by and part of. The people who try to understand it, the scientists, the historians, the mathematicians, they're all cool as hell. But even the people who don't care, who don't want to understand it--the way they sit in a chair, the way they cook, that's inspiring too.
Any advice for young designers?
Find a teacher. Find someone who inspires you and pushes you always. Understand their teachings might not be direct, or their impact immediate. Pay attention.
Any regrets?
NO REGERTS
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