Going to Milan Design Week is all about innovation in the industry. Introducing new products to the market and doing it in a BIG way. This year, I could attend by scrolling through the many projects that artists and influencers felt were Instagram worthy.
In a world where influencers rule the day on social media. Two of the biggest influencers in architecture and design have joined forces to outsource the content. They recently did a call for contributors to be one of the founding members to be featured during Milan Design Week. One of the caveats, you actually have to be going to cool stuff and are willing to post it for this channel.
As another Salone del Mobile approaches, one interesting development is to see how exhibitors and the rest of the industry will respond to a new manifesto that was published ahead of the event. The manifesto calls upon the industry to up its innovation and sustainability, citing specifically the need to embrace the “circular economy” and forge meaningful relationships with cultural institutions in the city.
MINDCRAFT is an exhibition that presents a new selection of the best Danish craft and design which was held during the Milan Design Week. The exhibition features fourteen new works by nineteen of Denmark’s leading designers and craftspeople. Curated by the Danish-Italian design duo GamFratesi and is shown in a spectacular historical venue in Brera in the centre of Milan. The idea behind MINDCRAFT is to explore the span between experimenting, innovative and conceptual design and sublime artistic and technical proficiency in Danish craft and design. ‘We chose the theme “In Between” because it reflects the fact that Danish craftspeople and designers work in a field of tension in between mind and craft. This exhibition covers the full range of that span, including fully developed ideas, conceptual qualities and sublime artistic and technical accomplishments, coupled with a unique understanding of the materials,’ says Stine Gam and Enrico Fratesi, who make up GamFratesi. Photos courtesy of MINDCRAFT.
Tom Dixon debuts at the Milan Design Week, showcasing new furniture, lighting and accessories under the theme of the CLUB. The conventional Gentleman’s club is reworked into a contemporary version of the historic British members club – a modern day home-away-from-home, a plush and cultured haven where pleasure and work collide. Some overdue additions to the popular BEAT family, inspired by the sculptural simplicity of traditional water vessels used in India. Both table and floor lights incorporate the familiar hand-beaten shade. GREY BEAT is an exercise in expressive minimalism, the instantly recognizable pendants are now recolored in grey with a precious internal silver plate, creating a warm, shimmering glow. A tactile table top made from durable polyurethane, the Y TABLE comes in two sizes and two different finishes – a plain black top and with an enamel insert. The enamel adds a vibrant pop of colour. Y Table is waterproof and works well on any of our table bases. An ode to optical engineering, FLOOD boasts a strong profile and takes inspiration from the automotive …
Entrances used to be important spaces, they have now been reduced to their minimum size, or have even been suppressed in some cases. The object is narrow, it accompanies the wall while being fixed on it. Pebble by Allegory offers modularity. A generous metal horizontal bar lays at an eye-height and is ready to receive pebble-modules of various sizes and thus functions. Each type of pebble has a particular size, colour and depth. It can be turned upside-down and can so become a tray, a pcket tray, a mirror, a shelf, a coat peg. To compose and organize a rack for it to always adapt to fit to new requirements which can depend on the season and the housing’s occupancy. The metal bar is screwed to the wall. The pebbles are thermolaquered steel, they are also available in anodised aluminium, except for the mirror which is in stainless steel.
Bathroom equipments are standardized and normalized, thus the space is almost always organized in the same way. The improvement of ventilation allowed for the bathrooms to be removed from the facades, but also made for them to have natural light, a luxury, which implied for space to lose in quality. Bathrooms are now functional spaces where the equipments are against the walls and in which the user finds himself at the center, as soon as he walks through the door. In parallel and specially in hotels, it has been demonstrated that the conception of nudity and privacy is evolving ; more and more often, some bathroom walls are replaced by glass which opens the space on the room. Allegory Studio asks itself about bathrooms being conceived as spaces; aside from the toilets, could bathrooms evolve from being a space to being furniture ? With a triangular shape and being independant from any walls, Roundabath is a bathroom-object which invites to turn around it. Not far from a wall, it generates secondary spaces, as well as …
British design and manufacturing company Tom Dixon has design GEM. Part of the Rough and Smooth collection, presented at this year’s 2013 Salone del Mobile in Milan, Italy, like a mysterious chemistry experiment FLASK is a spherical object made up of two, hand-blown, glass components, with a ridged and rounded base and a smoked-glass hood.
High-definition images of natural motifs are displayed on a giant screen, giving visitors the feeling that they are actually in nature.
A cube-like structure made-up of piano wires which are arranged in a lattice format.