Home Tours Architecture Architects Events Competitions Jobs Products Articles Photos Books About Us Site Map Home > Milan > Salone del Mobile Milan 2017 Published by Adrian Welch updated on April 30, 2017 Salone del Mobile Milan 2017, Design Week Installation, Furniture Collection Images Salone del Mobile Milan Contemporary Furniture Design Collections News, Italy, at Fairgrounds, Rho 11 Apr 2017 Milan Design Week News “Nordic Life in Urban Spaces” at the Milan Furniture fair 2017 ECO-FRIENDLY URBAN DESIGN AT MILANO DESIGN WEEK WITH VESTRE The Norwegian way of using street furniture to create accessible and attractive public spaces made its way to the European scene What if all cities were furnished with objects that combine design, social life and respect for the environment? A bench could become a chaise longue where people of all backgrounds and opinions can interchange experiences; planters, bike racks or litter bins in lively colors could be put together in historical contexts, and also, tables and chairs encouraging interaction with friends and enjoying the outdoor air just like at the park. For the first time at the Milano Design Week, Vestre, Norway’s historical market leader in the production of furniture for towns, parks and outdoor public spaces, presented “Nordic Life in Urban Spaces”, an installation at Opificio 31 that opened the door to a culture – still by and large limited to the Nordics – that shares design and sociability, urban regeneration and collective spaces. An innovative street furniture vision for a rebirth of contemporary cities in an ecofriendly and creative way and for the project of clever and democratic Smart Cities in which people can live and share. The project was curated by Torbjørn Anderssen and Espen Voll, from the prestigious Norwegian Design Studio Anderssen & Voll, which signed the most famous Vestre’s bestsellers. Core of the installation, natural materials, wood above all, in an exhibition that focused on multifunctionality, modularity and use of color: pieces of furniture designed to transform the urban public areas with dynamism, vitality and a strong design footprint. All of this in the name of social inclusiveness and sustainability: Vestre’s eco-friendly attitude is reflected in the design of climate-neutral products that boast a long life: in fact they can withstand even the hardest weather conditions and come with guarantees to prove it. In a history that began more than 70 years ago, Vestre has been able to create meeting places for millions of people: from Oslo to Stockholm, from London to Paris. More info on the company’s website: http://vestre.com 5 Apr 2017 The President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella visited the Zanotta stand at the Milan Furniture fair 2017 The head of State Sergio Mattarella, at the end of Salone del Mobile launch press conference, received by Giuliano Mosconi (President and CEO) and Eleonora Zanotta (Board member and Art Director), visited the Zanotta stand. For the Lombard company, active for over 60 years, it’s an official acknowledgement of the work done and an important encouragement in order to face the future. The President listened carefully, congratulated for the new collection and expressed esteem for the innovative exhibition space. 4 Apr 2017 Carlo Ratti Associati – Control Your Sofa with an App Milan Design Week 2017 April 4th, 2017 – Design and innovation office Carlo Ratti Associati, together with Milanese fab lab Opendot, have launched Lift-Bit — a shape-shifting sofa with embedded motion-tracking sensors that can be reconfigured remotely via an app. Imagine a piece of furniture you can remotely reconfigure with an app. Imagine a sofa that reacts and autonomously adjust its shape when you get close to it. Imagine a seating system that can change form in infinite numbers of ways — and seamlessly turn into a bed, a chaise longue, a group of armchairs, or a playground for kids. All of this is Lift-Bit — a project designed by Carlo Ratti Associati together with Opendot fab lab, that is unveiled during this year’s Milan Design Week, starting today (April 4th) at the Opendot space (via Tertulliano 70, Milan, Italy). Paying homage to radical British architect Cedric Price’s 1970s “Generator Project,” Lift-Bit is a modular, digitally reconfigurable furniture system that allows a sofa to turn into a chair, a bed, a lounge room, and an almost-endless set of configurations. The system involves a collection of individual, upholstered stools that can be easily assembled together. Unveiled as a prototype at the Milan Triennale in 2016, Lift-Bit officially debuts at Opendot space in a ready-for-production version, featuring sleek new legs in birch wood. For the first time ever, visitors are able to control Lift-Bit directly, shifting the individual stools’ height in any desired configuration – either with a hand gesture, or remotely through the use of Lift-Bit’s mobile app. The Lift-Bit app includes both a series of predetermined three- dimensional shapes and a tool to invent dynamic combinations. Furthermore, the seats’ soft texture embeds a capacitive control system, allowing each stool to sense the presence of a person’s hand close to it and start moving accordingly. By matching these technological elements with an elegant design, Lift-Bit makes it possible to reconfigure any or home or office setting, ushering in a new vision of interior design. “Lift-Bit draws on the potential of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to transform our interior landscape”, says Professor Carlo Ratti, founder of Carlo Ratti Associati studio and Director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): “In the future, we could imagine an architecture that adapts to human need, rather than the other way around – a living, tailored space that is molded to its inhabitants’ needs, characters, and desires.” “Lift-Bit gives people the possibility to actively contribute to the design of their own space. It is a participatory design, which never ceases to surprise you, and it surely cannot bore you”, says Alessandro Masserdotti, co- founder of Opendot, the Milan-based fab lab which contributed to the engineering of Lift-Bit. An early version of Lift-Bit, developed with the support of the Swiss manufacturer Vitra, was exhibited in Spring 2016 at the “Rooms. Novel Living Concepts” exhibition organized by Salone del Mobile Milano for the 21st Milan Triennale. Since then, Lift-Bit has gone viral, and has been exhibited at Linz’s Ars Electronica festival and at Weil am Rhein’s Vitra Design Museum (“Hello, Robot” exhibition, until May 2017). Lift-Bit was also a finalist in the FastCo Innovation by Design Award 2016. Lift-Bit is currently available for pre-order by customers worldwide. To join the waiting list or simply stay updated on the next phases of the production process, you can sign up at lift- bit.com. Lift-Bit is a project by Carlo Ratti Associati with Opendot. www.lift-bit.com ABOUT CARLO RATTI ASSOCIATI Carlo Ratti Associati is a design and innovation office based in Turin, Italy, with branches in Boston and London. Drawing on Carlo Ratti’s research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the office is currently involved in many projects across the globe. Embracing every scale of intervention – from furniture to urban planning – the work of the practice focuses on innovation in the built environment. Among recent projects there are the Future Food District thematic area at Milan World Expo 2015, the redesign of the Agnelli Foundation HQ in Turin, the master plan for the requalification of the Patrick Henry military village for IBA Heidelberg, the Pankhasari retreat in India’s Darjeeling, and the concept for a human-powered ‘Navigating Gym’ in Paris. Carlo Ratti Associati is the only design firm whose works have been featured twice in TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions of the Year list – respectively with the Digital Water Pavilion in 2007, and the Copenhagen Wheel in 2014. In the last years, the office has also been involved in the launch of Makr Shak, a startup producing the world’s first robotic bar system. carloratti.com ABOUT OPENDOT Opendot is a fab lab and a place for research, experimentation and rapid prototype production. It is an open and accessible platform that intertwines different realities to produce innovation, by transferring, adopting and merging tangible existing entities, to make a change in the lives of people and business. Opendot initiates changes, identifying in the open source format and in technological know-how new opportunities for growth in the areas of training, design, production and research. Thanks to its multidisciplinary approach, Opendot is a reference point for companies that wish to implement their products and know-how through processes of innovative development. Opendot stemmed from interaction design company dotdotdot, a multidisciplinary design studio founded in Milan in 2004, that combines art and architecture with new technologies and new media. opendotlab.it/ 3 Apr 2017 UNStudio at Salone del Mobile 2017 photo : oddproduzioni UNStudio and SCAPE are pleased to invite you to try out the prototypes for the RESET stress relief pods at the ‘Joyful Sense at Work’ exhibition in Milan. WEBSITE & VIDEO RESET Visit the RESET experience from: April 4th to 9th: Pavilion 24, E11-G10 (next to the SaloneSatellite) You are also cordially invited to join us at the following events: April 4th – 13:30 pm: Official opening April 5th – 11 am: Joyful Sense at Work Conference, organised by Assufficio and moderated by Cristiana Cutrona and Francesco Schianchi 29 Mar 2017 Milan Design Week 2017 with Ceramica Sant’Agostino From April 3th to 9th, in the occasion of Fuorisalone and Salone del Mobile, Ceramica Sant’Agostino is glad to invite you to a series of events, all dedicated to design and architecture, for our lives.