Design often begins with observation of simple, everyday objects. For me, it began with something ordinary like a bar of soap. A simple, biodegradable object we associate with cleanliness and routine.

But beyond function, I was fascinated by something else: how each time I used it, the soap changed, adapting to my grip. My touch subtly reshaped it, and in return, the object reshaped how I held it. 

It’s a simple observation, but it can make you rethink how we approach our relation to ordinary objects.  

This reciprocal transformation caught my attention. Holding a bar of soap is not like holding a tool with a fixed form, because the interaction evolves. The object and the user adapt to each other. Holding becomes a slow, iterative and haptic process. 

What fascinates me is that the soap is both the object and the experience. It’s held and used simultaneously. It’s a form that disappears through use, like a candle giving light as it melts. In both cases, function, material, and time are fused.

This idea also became the foundation for a different kind of product: my haptic knife.

Most knives are designed around function, sharpness, precision and control. But I wondered: what if a knife could behave more like a bar of soap, of course not literally, but in the way it adapts and integrates with the user over time?

The challenge was to design a knife that, while remaining precise and sharp, also offered a sensory dialogue. A tool you want to hold, not just for its function, but for its feel. One where the handle isn’t just ergonomic in a technical sense, but responsive in a personal one. A form that doesn’t demand to be held a certain way, but that adapts to your behavior, as a bar soup.

This is where my design philosophy comes in, through simple yet fundamental foundations:

• Let the form invite behavior.
• Let the behavior refine form.
• Let the object and user meet in the middle.

Over time the experience of holding a tool like the haptic knife begins to fit into your grip and into your actions, by becoming a part of your hand, following and adapting to its actions. 

It’s all about familiarity of the action and the pleasurable nature of the act of holding and using it. And in the end, the design of tools that speak to your body first, creates a meeting place between the object and yourself in the most natural and pleasurable way. 

Holding becomes something that is also functional to your actions, while inviting a deeper relation through shape and form.

The soap bar taught me that even the simplest object can reveal complex behaviors. By noticing the natural response of the soup bar to our holding, I designed from a change and dynamic perspective.

Whether it’s soap or a knife, good design makes you rethink our actions, by solving real, everyday problems. But this process is also about creating an ongoing interaction, where the object and the user shape each other through use.