Brightest Young Talent and Independent Designers in Milan 2017.

Related Posts:
Highlights From Milan Design Week 2017.
Video Highlights From Milan Design Week 2017.

Team Yellowtrace travelled to Milan courtesy of Cathay Pacific, who fly to Italy several times each week. Cathay’s great connections from Australia allow getting from Sydney to Milan in under 24 hours, including transit times. For more information visit cathaypacific.com.au.

SALONE SATELLITE.

Scenery Collection by Japanese designer Daisuke Kitagawa was an incredibly sophisticated and highly resolved collection of furniture and lighting pieces. It was love.

Aero Lights by David Derksen feature a metal foam frame, which functions both as a passive cooling element for the LED’s, as well as a textural lampshade.

Left: Studio Finna sought to break free from the traditional Finnish style. The unique Finnish atmospheres can still be seen in their work, but the rebellion is executed with bold colours, multiple materials and sculptural forms. Right: H.3 Chair by Croatian studio Regular Company is piece of contrasts – architectural, masculine frame meets an embracing, feminine seat and backrest.

Left: Trio Sphere Pendant by Danish designer Mette Schelde features a light source placed in the centre of the three fragmented spheres. So hot! Right: 7 Lamp by the trio of Finnish designers Luomo Collective.

Left: Split & Store room divider and storage unit-in-one by Rens. Photography by Aisha Zeijpveld. Right: Poster Mirror by Haruko Arai / Zemi (collective of students from Kyoto Institute of Technology).

SPAZIO ROSSANA ORLANDI

Escape Series by Fernando Mastrangelo, who uses commonplace materials – such as salt, coffee, sand, glass and cement – to cast sculptural objects that straddle disciplines of fine art and design.

Left: Ombre Glass Chair by Latvia-born, Netherlands-based designer Germans Ermičs. Photo by Jussi Puikkonen. Right: ‘Structural Skin’ Leather Lamp by Spanish designer Jorge Penadés, who devised a new production method that transforms leather waste into a completely new material.

Terrazzo Tables by Georgian design studio Rooms.

Patience Clocks by Tokyo-based We+ uses a human face to represent the passage of time. The eyes work in the same way as the hands of an analogue clock – the right eye indicating hours and the left indicating minutes. The mouth opens and closes to represent seconds.

AROUND MILAN

Dutch company Baars and Bloemhoff staged Transitions II, a show that invited six young Dutch designers to reinterpret the company’s product range exhibited under the vaults of Ventura Centrale. Using timber veneer from the Bars & Bloemhoff’s collection, David Derksen created a set of ultra light space dividers. Usually, veneer is glued onto a cheaper wood to decorate a surface, however Derksen uses the veneer as a material in its own right. Photography by Ronald Smith.

Furniture collection by Danish designer Amanda Lilholt, on show at Ventura Lambrate, was an exploration of surface treatment on metal. Photography by Jonathan Trier.

Dutch designers Studio Ossidiana reinterpreted traditional Persian carpets as a series of concrete pieces dubbed ‘Petrified Carpets’. Studio Ossidiana approached concrete as a crafted material, like weaving or knitting, exploring it’s expressive potential which has progressively been lost in the construction industry.

Together Stools by Helen Johannesson at Almost Complete Exhibition by Students of HDK Academy Gothenburg at Ventura Lambrate. 

Bloc Studios worked with Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis and Swedish photographer Carl Kleiner to launch the collection of lamps and vases. Left: Voie Lights by Sabine Marcelis bring the magic of marble and onyx to life with the passage of neon light. Right: Postures Vases by Carl Kleiner feature marble bases with flowers mounted on elegant wire frames, like modern day Ikebanas.

At Palazzo Clerici, Envisions returned with an experimental collaboration between Dutch designers and the Spanish wood manufacturer Finsa, where the emphasis was not on the finished product but the possibilities uncovered along the way. Envisions considers the process to be one of design’s defining factors, one which is often undervalued and rarely – if ever – exposed throughout the industry. Left: Iwan Pol for Envisions. Photography by Ronald Smits. Right: Simone Post for Envisions. Photography by Ronald Smits.

Left: Inderjeet Sandhu examines our need for classification and how one should be labeled. By reproducing the plants and flowers in a material foreign to them (like copper, marble, brass and embroidery), the objects enter ambiguous territory. Photography by Erik Smits. Right: Child Studio’s ‘In the Shadow of a Man’ features a collection of glowing glass spheres that appear to be rolling and sliding from the top of geometric plinths.

Left: Big Arm by Swedish designers Färg & Blanche, presented at the duo’s solo show ‘Amour mon Amour’ at 5Vie. Right: Giopato & Coombes reflected on the famous essay ‘Ornament and Crime’ by architect Adolf Loos – asking is ornament really a crime when it goes hand in hand with technological and functional growth? The answer to this question took the form of three lights, marrying manufacturing quality and technology with the beauty of ornament.

[Images courtesy of the designers.]