Once upon a time, classy globetrotters would travel with trunks, hat boxes, suitcases and sometimes even furniture (cots, chairs, travel desks). Emigrants, on the other hand, travelled light. The trolley is a contemporary tourist’s emblem, while the rucksack with a portable computer is the commonplace appendix on the backs of young executives.

In a society where frequent and fast transits are a way of life, the urban nomad requires hybridised gear and accoutrements that contain miniaturised houses and offices. This is the niche where we find Equipaggiamenti Mobili Ferrino 1870, an enterprise created by Anna Ferrino, managing director of the Ferrino 1870 company from Turin, and Moreno Ferrari, a fashion and design talent. Their collection includes the Zaino Armadio (“backpack closet”), a backpack with drawers, clothes bar and little bookshelves, designed to be easily carried despite it furniture-like contents. Then there is another backpack, the Ufficio in Movimento (“office in movement”), with multifunctional pockets of all sizes to carry a laptop and everything else you need to set up an independent office on the go. Canadese Pop (“Canadian Pop”) is a tonguein- cheek redesign of the classic camping tent, and Capsule d’Amore (“love capsules”) are mini urban shelters with three entrances.

In 2009, Ferrino also gave the old-fashioned picnic an overhaul. This series of implements features Genova, a canvas tote with pockets that can be attached to the crossbar or rear parcel rack of a bicycle; Fuori Porta, an aluminised nylon tarpaulin with removable pockets, corner grommets and pickets for anchoring it down in case of wind or difficult surfaces; and Cappa, a canvas garment with front slits for the arms.

Observing this equipment, Lucy Orta comes to mind, and her first projects – poetic and functional creations for the homeless, defined as “social engineering” by the critic Pierre Restany (Domus issue 793). Not without their share of solidarity, the designs produced by Ferrino 1870 constitute examples of “leisure engineering” that is full of interesting ideas.