This is the best week of the year. Enjoy Milan Design Week! The motto of the 2019 Fuorisalone tells how crucial it is to be present at the world's most important design event, to be informed about the latest cultural trends and technologies of the future in design. An event, or rather a city-event, which hosts many and many performances and installations in its urban pattern. In Milan, a city that changes its look for a week, in a background made of creativity and design linked to the urban environment, a unique and unseen event.

Not a Fair event, but a set of events started spontaneously several years ago focused on furniture, furnishings, and materials, now expanding into many related sectors: technology, automotive, telecommunications, etc, including innovation and sustainability. This year, more than 1200 events and more than 500,000 visitors are expected at the Fuorisalone. It will be so easy to get lost in these jungle of scheduled events! Here, we will try to find a path for those who have specific interests in innovation and sustanaibiliy, citing the conferences and events not to be missed.

If you are an architect or you are simply looking for an “itinerary that combines the events related to sustainability and innovation, to build together a sustainable future”, you cannot miss the Innovation Design District, the new district that symbolizes smart city design between Porta Volta and Porta Nuova, the Brera Design District, an area legendary for its outstanding Italian and international design, and the Superstudio design show, one of the most sought after and visited destinations of the milanese design week.

From 8th to 14th April, at the Fondazione Riccardo Catella, via Gaetano De Castillia, 28,  you will find the IconTalks related to global cities, energy communities, urban regeneration and open innovation, curated by many speakers: architects, designers and industry experts. On April 9, 5:00 pm, Milano Smart, an event focused on how "smart" becomes an indicator of a profound ability of the cities in transformation to be interpreters, quickly and effectively, of people's needs, improving the quality of life with a minimum possible environmental impact. 

Image courtesy of Fuorisalone

On April 10, 6.30 pm, Global Cities, an Icon Talk about global cities as hospitable cities. It will be discussed about what role can the "global cities" play today, on how do these interconnected cities fit into a map where national states appear so ancient. On April 12, 3:30 pm, Open Innovation, the icontalk on the intelligent transformation of cities based on the culture of sharing: the "collaborative consumption", as defined in the motto "What's mine it’s your" by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers; a new cultural and economic model of sustainability. 

On April 12, 6:30 pm, The peripheries in the age of sovereignism. A icontalk based on: “The hospitable city", that one able to include the periphery in the city itself. Thus the talk will discuss how: "In an age in which digital technology would allow the delocalization of services, thereby decentralizing the places of institutional power, politics has the task of destroying social suburbs while architecture reconfigures them as new urban poles.”

In reference to the exhibition events prepared and curated by designers, you cannot miss the event: Building Objects. The Mario Cucinella Design collection which will be inaugurated from April 8th to 14th in the Brera Design District 2019 within the via Varese 12 exhibition space. Unique pieces of design by the architect that draw inspiration from the formal and structural elements of architecture specifications including: the "The Whale" kindergarten in Guastalla (near Reggio Emilia), the Luigi Rovati Foundation Museum (currently under construction in Milan), the Green School designed for the Middle East, the Kwame Nkrumah presidential library in the near Lake Volta in Ghana and Home for Peace in Scanzano Jonico (near Matera). An exhibition that rediscovers the Master Craftsmen through a careful selection of materials and an ancient manual knowledge, which tells how these materials are renewed thanks to technological innovation, where 3D printing plays a key role.

Kwame Nkrumah presidential library. Image © MCA

Mario Cucinella will also hold a conference on sustainability, Building a Green Future, on April 16th at 6:00 am at ClubHouse Brera - Foro Buonaparte 22 Milan. He will illustrate how to design buildings with Zero energy, how to create a green future through a bridge with the past, with our millennial history. A vision focused on a renewed relationship with the climate, where the buildings of tomorrow will rediscover the environmental complicity they have had for centuries in a new relationship between modern technology and history knowledge.

Nido verticale. Image © MCA

At the design week you will not only find big firms and famous speakers, but many other events led by young designers and visionary artists linked to the themes of sustainability and innovation. For example: Reflection, Design driven by the future, an exhibition focused on the vision and imagination of more than 150 young creative: an interactive micro-installation and an experiential event to imagine a future closer to new lifestyles. An event organized by the School of Design of the Politecnico di Milano and by the design studio Habits, in collaboration with Braun, that will be held at the "habits design studio" in via Oslavia 17, from 9 to 12 April 2019. Here, you will find the results of the creative workshop of these young designers: new natural dimensions and unexplored relationships between users and objects in a technologically advanced home environment. A context where the term Smart is used with a different meaning: “a product is intelligent not because it imposes technology but because it focuses on the needs of the user.”

Again with the support of the students, during the week you will find the event Fuorisalone: Necessary Architecture at Hubbastanza studio, in Via Mac Mahon, 30. A new architectural studio that hosts a review of projects developed by a group of students from the "Politecnico di Milano". Projects aimed at defining a model of sustainable housing structure supporting the Lodi mission "Parroisse St. Charles Lwanga De Dosso", Eglise Catholique au Niger. Sustainable building projects both energetically and socially, based on the use of raw earth as a building material. Hubbastanza will host works in which the creative process of the project will be described: tables and models will be exhibited on a 1: 200 scale of the building and on a 1:50 scale with detailed construction details.

In the same cultural context open to new ideas for sustainability, from 8 to 14 April you will find the Migaki Design Earth Competition, housed in the prestigious location of the Francesco Messina museum. An opportunity created to increase sensitivity on some specific sustainability issues, in particular on the use of raw earth construction techniques: a study that in itself is a unique in-depth analysis of green design. 

First and only example of a study on the use of raw earth as a raw material in the furniture industry and everyday objects. At the event you will find both designers and experts in raw materials, who are invited to participate in the invitation with proposals for ideas ranging from self-production to Industrial Design. But the event will not only be a competition, it will also be a creative environment and a laboratory open to young people. For children aged 6 to 66, for them: to make them come in contact with the clay and play freely to create any type of object with raw earth. This through learning methods close to Japanese culture: the transferring of know-how to do, regardless of personal skills. "Hikaru Dorodango", "Painting on clay" and "Construction", to build our future starting from our origins, from our innate abilities, like those of children.

During the week, along the Milanese streets, you will also find an imposing installation 6 meters high in Piazza XXV Aprile. RoBOTL, an installation born thanks to the Timberland partnership with Giò Forma, an international award-winning studio. A sustainability superhero, a symbol and a warning that reminds us how important it is to safeguard the environment in which we live. An installation created thanks to a careful and meticulous search for articles: recycled plastic bottles and production waste from the design industry with the aim of transforming pollutants into something that has meaning. RoBOTL thus becomes an official spokesperson to raise awareness of responsible action and awareness in the recovery and treatment of waste.

Technologies for recycling, but also for energy saving and smart cities, such as those represented during the design week at the exposition of the  Superstudio design show . An hub of creativity with its 13.000 sq.m of exhibiting spaces, 2 locations, 100.000 visitors and over 2.000 registered journalists just in 2018. An esposition with the mission to include: "only the best, with particular attention to the Innovation and traditions theme". Here, you will indeed find the event Smart City: People, Technologies & Materials, designed by Material ConneXion Italia and cured by the Architect Giulio Ceppi. An event for Stimulating ideas and debates on the theme of the “Latin way to the smart city”: a system of relations that produces value, where technology is a tool of symbiosis and empathy. You will find a rich exhibition divided into six thematic areas, to cover from advanced construction to sustainability, from new technologies to agriculture, from mobility to food. The Superstudio will also host, among others,  the Green Tech for Nature event: a small revolution in the world of lighting with Miss Nightingale. A lighting with a long burning capacity of 60 hours that will be launched internationally during the design week.

Many other events during the design week will regards technologies of the future, those of the post-fossil era. Into the Light organized by Polestar at Opificio 3 in via Tortona, to see the present as the dawn of a new and exciting electric era, where petrol stations change function, become electrical supply points. 

Or, Breathe well to live better in via Savona 52, to learn about "Interior design solutions for indoor air and water purification". Or, the events Radicity, the association that deals with eco-sustainable urban regeneration, to see a green installation in Piazza Gae Aulenti as a meeting of possible worlds and cultures. Many other events, described in the complete program on the Fuorisalone website, which highlight the passion of many to see, listen and do for our future. A sustainable and innovative future, the one presented in the optimism of the design week exhibitions, that one aimed to looks ahead with a ideal smile, that one that make it possible:  the Milano Fuorisalone vision.

Aqua. Leonardo da Vinci’s water vision via Vimeo © Balich Worldwide Shows

Top image courtesy of MCA

All images courtesy of Fuorisalone unless otherwise stated

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