This year’s focus in Milan has been on materials and detail, with outstanding new products inviting the sensation of human touch. Here, I have selected a number of pieces that stood out to me for their originality, including a few by Australian designers. I particularly loved imagining the slippery fingers of Faye Toogood’s Butter prototype (yellow seems to be the colour of the moment), the playfulness of the Gelato lamp, the texture of the Lava tiles, and the huge glass block that is the new Agape basin.
Butter sofa by Faye Toogood
This new super squashy sofa by UK designer Faye Toogood for Tacchini is enough to melt your heart. Originally modelled with slippery fingers from a block of Cornish butter, the form of the sofa and its soft yellow colour evoke an everyday beauty – the quotidian pleasure of butter on bread. Part of the Bread and Butter collection, which also includes a Bread console and side tables in timber, the Butter sofa is made of oversized modular pieces that can be rearranged to your taste. Delicious.
Solace light by Ross Gardam
Australian Ross Gardam continues his success in lighting with Solace, a new form that is both simple and complex in form, derived from two overlapping geometric spheres. Like some of his other works, this one is made by blowing glass into a mould, but instead of being a rotating mould, it is static, and a faint imprint of the mould can be seen and felt on the surface of the glass. Stunning work.
Study TrulyTruly Big Glow light for Rakumba
Another Australian lighting design making waves in Milan is the Big Glow light by Studio TrulyTruly for Rakumba. This oversized light is inspired by the designers’ experience living as Australians in Europe and reflecting on the difference in quality of light between the two. The light is made of non-woven wool blended with a plant-based fibre transformed under heat and pressure. They also stack inside each other to reduce shipping volumes. Smart.
Marmelade lounge chair by Rosa Ryhänen
This strange chair exhibited as part of the Habitare: Materials and Objects exhibition of Finnish works at Alcova is called the Marmelade lounge chair. It is part of Finnish designer Rosa Ryhänen’s series called “Form Follows Intuition” and looks as if it might have been drawn in texta by a child. Rosa says on first sight you might ask yourself: “Is it magic that holds the piece together?”
Squash Mirror by Paul Cocksedge for Magis
This series of mirrors by UK designer Paul Cocksedge explores the effect of compression on geometric shapes. It started with an experiment taking three-dimensional soft forms and compressing them, then interpreting them into 2D mirrors. In doing so they take on a sense of personality. “They evoke human connections – like friends greeting each other, a parent holding a child, or the warmth of an embrace,” says the designer.
Ranieri Lava tiles
Ranieri had a large exhibit at Alcova in the ex-SNAI factory, a post-industrial space that has become a ruin over the years. Called “Under the Volcano,” it featured their Void tables and the Reborn chair, plus some volcanic rock carved with robot arms, but it is their tiles that caught my eye, all made from lava stone near Naples.
Gelato lamp by Established and Sons
The Gelato lamp was originally designed in the 1960s by Italian designer and glass blower Carlo Nason and now has been redeveloped by Established and Sons, retaining and updating its style for a new generation. Originally wired, it is now a portable lamp and is available in an array of mouth-watering colours.
Massicci basin by Agape
Made from 18 kilograms of solid glass, this basin retains the irregularities of its formation at 1200 degrees, creating textures that interplay with light and water. Designed by Marco Zito for Italian bathroom brand Agape, it is available in clear glass or ochre yellow.
Esmerelda Modular Cabinet by Bottos Design Italia for Artemest
Artemest is a brand that champions Italian design and craftsmanship around the world, with a finely curated (and top end) selection of designer products. The Esmerelda Modular Cabinet is the perfect example of the brand’s attention to detail, with its spiral wooden design cut with precision into the timber, creating a unique talking piece that is also a functional storage cupboard.
Collette chair by Adam Goodrum
With Collette chair, Australian designer Adam Goodrum was inspired by an abstract reference to the Vietnamese traditional script. And the shape of its back forms a collar (collette in French) giving it its name. Created in soft ash, the chair is manufactured by Vietnamese brand District Eight.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
