By Emily Engle - Jun 27

Yuma Kano Discusses the Magical Process of "Rust Harvesting" 

The Japanese designer developed a method of transferring rust from metal surfaces to acrylic

When we think of rust, the first thing that comes to mind is "old," as the natural process is an indicator of age for most products and even modes of transportation like motorcycles and boats. Through his experimental materials project Rust Harvest, designer Yuma Kano aims to transform our notion

By Emily Engle - Apr 27

BYTON VP of Design, Benoît Jacob, on Designing a Timeless Electric SUV for Modern Consumers

"We are not trying to innovate for the sake of innovating, but instead we're trying to innovate where it really makes sense."

During last week's Milan Design Week festivities, China, Munich and California-based electric vehicle start-up BYTON unveiled their electric concept SUV in Europe for the first time at a quiet, tucked away location in the Brera Design District. The concept was previously unveiled at CES and a few other locations, but for the European unveiling, BYTON created an installation around the vehicle and put together a miniature design studio on the lower level of their venue.

By Emily Engle - Apr 23

Why Diners? David Rockwell Reflects on Theme of His Milan Design Week Installation 

"Diners fill that role of a handshake, a hug and a welcome, and I think design can do that too."

David Rockwell and Surface Magazine's The Diner installation was a crowd favorite at this year's Milan Design Week. Housed in the empty warehouses of Ventura Centrale, The Rockwell Group in collaboration with design studio 2x4 were one of the few exhibitors to completely transform the blank, concrete canvas they were

By Carla Zimmermann & Megan Dinius - Apr 23

Co-Creating Towards a Better Future: A Journey Through the 2018 Lexus Design Awards

During the madness that is Milan Design Week, Lexus gave the public a space to meditate and refocus their thoughts. Set this year in the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia's Cavallerizze buildings, the sixth edition of the Lexus Design Awards focused around the prefix "Co-". With an impressive

By Emily Engle - Apr 18

Milan Design Week Recap: Days 1 and 2

A few of our favorite discoveries from our first two days on site in Milan

We're two days into Milan Design week, and although we haven't hit the big shows yet, we've discovered plenty of smaller wonders within or near La Brera and Ventura Centrale, ranging from wooden marionettes made from chairs to electric vehicle sketches:

By Emily Engle - Apr 17

Behind the Scenes of COS x Phillip K. Smith III's Reflective 'Open Sky' Installation at Milan Design Week

The mirrored structures will be on view all week at the historic Palazzo Isimbardi

COS has returned to Milan Design Week for a seventh consecutive collaborative installation. Last year, the London-based fashion brand collaborated with Studio Swine to create a multi-sensory experience including a fountain of air-bubbles. This time around, the collaborator is Palm Springs-based designer Phillip K. Smith III , and for the

By Emily Engle - Apr 06

Vitra and Robert Stadler's Typecasting Exhibition Sheds New Light on Iconic, Forgotten and New Vitra Furniture

If your furniture could talk, what would it say about you?

When performing personal necessity-driven tasks like sleeping, eating and sitting, we often neglect to consider what the furniture we use during our most personal activities says about ourselves. The objects we choose to surround ourselves with speak miles about who we are as individuals, but that's easy to forget when

By Emily Engle - Apr 05

LAYER and kvadrat Announce Shape-Shifting Retail Shelf System Ahead of Salone del Mobile

SHIFT utilizes Really's Solid Textile Board

Today, industrial design studio LAYER, textile manufacturer Kvadrat and circular economy-focused material company Really announced SHIFT, a shape-shifting retail shelf system that will launch at at Salone del Mobile in a couple of weeks. At first glance, SHIFT looks like a basic wall panel, but when you (literally) peel back

By Ray Hu - Apr 20, 2017

Milan Design Week 2017: Form Follows Fiction

Provocations abound: From must-see TV to super marketing, several exhibitions cast a critical eye on the design industry

As the industry's biggest annual trade fair, the Salone del Mobile is certainly an occasion to reflect on the state of design today—both implicitly and explicitly as certain schools and organizations take the opportunity to critique the commercial pretense of both the Salone and the mobile. This year, two venues

By Ray Hu - Apr 17, 2017

Milan Design Week 2017: Best in Glass

The visual appeal of the material is clear...

Just over a century ago, Paul Scheerbart noted that "the new glass environment will completely transform mankind, and it remains only to wish that the new glass culture will not find too many opponents." Captivated by Bruno Taut's 1914 glass pavilion, the writer painted a utopian picture of a crystalline

By Ray Hu - Apr 17, 2017

Milan Design Week 2017: SaloneSatellite—20 Years and Still Going Strong

The young talent section of the Salone del Mobile takes a moment to look back while offering a premier platform for the future of furniture... and food?

As far as themes go, "DESIGN is...?" might be as open-ended as they come. If the vast majority of the 650 young designers exhibiting in SaloneSatellite 2017 are any indication, design is stuff you put in your house, with few deviations from furniture and lighting at the far end of

By Ray Hu - Apr 13, 2017

Milan Design Week 2017: Technology, Craft, and Poetry from Japan

From the sun and mountains to paper and pixels, Japanese companies and designers made a strong showing in Milan

In his Statement of Intent for this year's Japan Creative Projects exhibition at the Palazzo Litta, Director Hiroshi Naito notes that a central tenet of Japanese culture is "to make a point of treating things with great care and affection." Indeed, Japanese companies and designers alike made a strong showing

By Ray Hu - Apr 12, 2017

Milan Design Week 2017: From Two Dimensions to New Dimensions

Various projects and exhibitions split the difference between the physical aspect of material and the visual aesthetic of image

Design, like nearly every aspect of life today, is often as much about how the projects are represented in media as they are about their function or user experience. For anyone who is vicariously following along with design events and exhibitions via screen-based media such as Facebook, Instagram, and the

By LinYee Yuan - Apr 12, 2017

IKEA Hacks IKEA for Milan Design Week 2017

A 6-Day Festival in Ventura Lambrate Celebrates Democratic Design

Who makes the best IKEA hacks? After last week's IKEA Festival during Milan's Design Week, the clear winner is IKEA. For their first official foray into presenting during the festivities of Salone del Mobile (2015's kitchen-focused presentation in Tortona was also meant to address the throngs of visitors for Expo

By LinYee Yuan - Apr 11, 2017

Innovation in the In-Between

The 2017 Lexus Design Awards Explore the theme of "Yet"

With today's rapidly dissolving boundaries in design, it's appropriate that more and more design programs are exploring the possibilities in between disciplines. At last year's Core77 conference, the theme of co-creation explored this idea, and at the 2017 Milan Design Week, Lexus highlighted their own brand commitment to finding innovation

By Ray Hu - Apr 10, 2017

Milan Design Week 2017: Everyone is a Winner at HEAD Genève's Salone Ludico

An impressive showcase of interactive projects by Media Design Masters students is a highlight from the Fuorisalone

As of last year, mobile gaming revenue surpassed that of console and PC. Angry Birds or Pokémon Go may be great ways to kill time, but digital games need not be solitary pursuits confined to screens—on the contrary, distraction can aspire to reveal something more profound. Case in point, a

By Kat Bauman - Apr 10, 2017

Weird Bikes Done Right

If you're going to make a conceptual fixie at least make it funny

I'm on record as pretty unimpressed by most of the hubless and minimal frame and clunky carbon fiber and 3d printed and "modular" bike ideas you design nerds come up with, but I still like fun. The designers at Playful Design Studio obviously do too. Their new bike design links

By Emily Engle - Apr 06, 2017

Calico Wallpaper's Collaborative, Process-Driven Collection at Salone Del Mobile

The bespoke wallpaper company teamed up with outside designers, including BCXSY and Snarkitecture for Imagined Landscape

Calico Wallpaper has collaborated with four talented designers/design teams for their first solo Milan Design Week exhibit, Imagined Landscape. Faye Toogood, Snarkitecture, Ana Kraš and BCXSY are the first outside designers to collaborate with the bespoke wallpaper company. For the collection, they explored the relationship between sense of place and

By Core Jr - Apr 05, 2017

10 Projects Addressing Social Design and Cultural Heritage During Ventura Lambrate

Shelters made from coffee, mirrors coated in thermochromic ink, well designed sausage and more

This year's Ventura Lambrate themes are Social Design and Cultural Heritage—two very open-ended themes that invite designers to show work that address global change and/or represents their country of origin. We're happy to see most designers bringing thought-provoking work along these lines to the table. Within the two themes, we're

By Emily Engle - Apr 04, 2017

17 Designers to Look Out For at Salone del Mobile 2017

Other worldly materials and wacky form push these designers to the top of our must-see-in-Milan-list

There's still plenty of time left in the week to make your rounds at Salone del Mobile. To make the journey a bit easier, we've curated a list of designers to scope out during the show due. The designers on this list use unique materials and demonstrate clever form design.

By Core Jr - Apr 04, 2017

Studio Swine Dreams Up a "Multi-Sensory Experience" for COS 

The exhibition made for Salone 2017 in Milan features material-repelling smoke bubbles

For the sixth year in a row, fashion brand COS joins in on the Milan Design Week fun with an encapsulating exhibition created by Studio Swine, the design duo behind a number of beautiful process-related design films over the past few years (and whose films we presented at our 2016

By Emily Engle - Apr 03, 2017

14 Must-See Exhibits at Salone del Mobile 

Designers are exhibiting new takes on popular design themes in Milan from April 3-9

Today marks the beginning of this year's Salone del Mobile in Milan. Whether you're among the hundreds of designers who flock to Italy for the festival or you're at home scouring the Internet with a severe case of FOMO, it's important to narrow down your radar to the best of

By Allison Fonder - Apr 03, 2017

Kvadrat x Really and the Rise of the Circular Economy Mindset

At Milan Design Week, Max Lamb and Christien Meindertsma are working with a new manufactured material that brings to light design's impact on sustainability

At the beginning of 2017, IDEO launched a website meant to serve as a guide and resource for designers hoping to support the "circular economy", or, the idea that designers and industries must begin to imbue in their design consciousness that products should be created with the intent of continually

By Allison Fonder - Mar 31, 2017

MINDCRAFT Exhibition in Milan Will Explore Notions of Time

The annual exhibit will display works from 18 Danish designers next week at Milan Design Week

An arguably refreshing aspect of Milan Design Week's smaller contender shows are their concentration on the importance of spontaneity and experimentation—Salone offshoots such as Ventura Lambrate and Rosanna Orlandi embrace the unconventional, giving way to a new understanding of designers' processes and research. A view of MINDCRAFT's 2015 exhibitionIn

By Carly Ayres - Jun 06, 2016

SMART SLAB: A Futuristic Table That Can Chill Your Champagne and Charge Your Phone

SapienStone and KRAM/WEISSHAAR's collaboration is heating things up in the kitchen

My body now reacts in a visceral, often painful way to any product with the word 'smart' slapped in front of it, but the SMART SLAB from SapienStone is actually pretty smart—in concept, at least. Debuted at Milan Design Week earlier this year, SMART SLAB is a table from SapienStone

By Core Jr - May 16, 2016

Ronan Bouroullec on Design Festivals and the Balance of Craft and Industry

To celebrate the U.S. debut of Lattice, a kilim rug designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Nanimarquina, Core77 spoke with Ronan about the role of design week presentations starting with the importance of the Salone del Mobile in Milan to the balance of craft and industry. Lattice kilim rug

By Allison Fonder - May 04, 2016

Weaving a New History for "Women in Italian Design"

Triennale di Milano's recent exhibition opens up new perspectives on the female spirit of creativity

Gender is accepted not as a simple biological factor, but as a way of identifying ourselves. The discussions around male-female are becoming increasingly complex as the focal point veers away from biological issues and more toward cultural ones. How does our gender identity affect the way we see the world?