From Karimoku New Standard, which invaded an apartment in Brera to showcase a series of tableaux of everyday life, to the projects of Thomas Vailly, Thomas Maincent e Joong Han Lee in Ventura Lambrate, showcasing proposals for a new industrial revolution; from starchitect Jean Nouvel who, at the Fair, attracted attention by sitting on his new chair for Bolon, to rockstar Lenny Kravitz, who talked to us about a new collection he designed for Lea Ceramiche.
The following highlights are not a selection of the best, but of most surprising moments throughout the week and around the city.
Beatrice Galilee - Exyzt/La Rinascente
A video from Milan by Loredana Mascheroni
The London curator has gathered the most interesting young talents in the international world of design, art and architecture in a platform of performances, installation events and workshops for those in the city for the Furniture Fair. Hacked is an invitation to explore, change and experiment in the wake of the concepts of appropriation and alteration that are pervading all the disciplines and conditioning contemporary living.
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A news report from Milan
A 100-year-old building in Milan's Via Palermo formed the ideal setting to present the new collection of Karimoku New Standard during the 2012 Salone del Mobile. It was a place that, during the years, has been used by many different people in various ways. Exactly in this kind of everyday environment Karimoku New Standard tried to show that their furniture can easily mix with any existing living environment, and be used by anybody at any time.
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Nina Tolstrup / The pallets project
A video from Milan by Simona Bordone
The pallets project was conceived in 2005 and has been downloadable from Studiomama website ever since. In Milan, the designer held a workshop in which a chair from the collection was constructed.
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Dutch Invertuals: Untouchables Retouched
A news report from Milan by Elena Sommariva
This year, O' in via Pastrengo 12 in Milan hosts 11 Dutch Invertuals, invited by the curator and founder Wendy Plomp to work on fragility and vulnerability applied to contemporary design. "We believe this subject is well suited to today's society and part of our work is looking for a way to protect ourselves", explains Mieke Meijer, who has designed a lamp made out of two wooden sticks. "If the sticks are separated, you cannot even call it a lamp, it is nothing", adds Mieke. It is switched on via a small brass plate resting on the wood, which acts as an electrical conductor. "This lamp plays on the concept of balance because it will only light up in the right positions and combinations."
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Hallingdal 65: Hans Maier-Aichen
A video from Milan by Vera Sacchetti
Assigned with the areas of Germany, Switzerland and Austria, Hans Maier-Aichen, one of the seven curators of the Kvadrat Hallingdal 65 project, chose to push the boundaries of what is traditionally perceived as germanic design — clean, precise design — by choosign to work with mischer'traxler, Adrian Rovero, Katrin Sonnleitner, and Bless.
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A news report from Milano by Elena Sommariva
British designers Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby, who designed the 2012 Olympic Torch, have teamed up with B&B Italia for the first time to design a table-sculpture inspired by the smooth dark stones used for ornamental purposes in Japanese gardens. This dark, round monolith (a form long absent from the B&B catalogue) has a wooden top completely covered with concrete grout, an almost liquid mix normally employed in construction to fix claddings or waterproof roofs.
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Z33: The Machine
A video from Milan by Vera Sacchetti
Previewing the new exhibition at Z33 - house of contemporary art, the works of Thomas Vailly, Thomas Maincent and Joong Han Lee present a series of utopian, futuristic visions of a new industrial future. From a new polymers and textiles to a different way of looking at computer-aided manufacturing, designers lead the way in this revolution.
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Lorenzo Damiani: no style
A news report from Milan by Elena Ferrari
Achille Castiglioni has supported and appreciated the work of Lorenzo Damiani Lorenzo Damiani awarding it the Progetto Giovane-Compasso d'Oro in 1998. In response to a competition organized by Osram who asked competitors to design a new light bulb, the architect/designer decided not to reinvent the object itself but to reconceptualize its use. Packlight, on exhibit at the Studio Museum, comes from the idea of using a common Osram Deluxe light bulb and also its carton as a lampshade. Costs are reduced, thus stimulating the reuse of packaging that would normally be discarded after purchase. What unites Castiglioni and Damian are not formal aspects but the testing, the simplicity of production and the sensitivity to user-friendly design.
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Jean Nouvel / Bolon
A video from Milan by Loredana Mascheroni
"I could do nothing to improve on this new Bolon product so I simply conjured up a ploy to make those passing the stand stop and look." This was Jean Nouvel's comment on the decision to place life-size statues of himself on the floor, walls and even the ceiling of the company's stand. A successful communication strategy with a barrage of photographs taken on the bench beside the architect dressed in black – this is how a highly amused Marie and Annicka Ecklund watched the intrigued queues at the launch of their new 3D fabric interior coverings Create.
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A video from Milan by Vera Sacchetti
In his annual installation at Spazio Krizia, German designer Ingo Maurer discusses his new designs: Candle in the Wind, presented as an LED chandelier and table lamp;Zak Zarak, an articulate LED table lamp composed of magnets, plastic and aluminum; Biotope, a one-off installation where nature meets illumination and acoustics, and a new exploration of the OLED technology.
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Lenny Kravitz / Lea Ceramiche
A video from Milan by Roberto Zancan
Kravitz Design Inc. creates Goccia: a design element that provides texture and movement to the living environment. Black and white fluid tiles propose a vibrating effect along a wall. "The creative process in music and design are very similar", says rock star Lenny Kravitz.
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Stephen Burks / Dedon
A video from Milan by Loredana Mascheroni
Craftspeople have woven Dedon, a synthetic resin fibre made from recycled food packaging and fully recyclable polyethylene, around an extruded aluminium structure. The form chosen by Burks for Dala (which means 'doing' in a dialect spoken in Senegal, where the designer worked in collaboration with local craftspeople) reinforces the reference to the Asian culture and the choice of green, blue and orange underscores their link with nature. All the pieces are light and easily carried thanks to a fabric handle.
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Ora-Ïto / Scavolini
A video from Milan by Loredana Mascheroni
Ora-ïto set out to design Foodshelf for Scavolini—working with this type for the first time—by rereading the relationship between kitchen and living room. He wanted to create a kitchen that would be the hub of the home as well as offering aesthetic continuity, with a vision of integration that has altered the customary compositional parameters of functional modules.
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