Vertica Dvivedi, Chief Editor of Surfaces Reporter magazine and the founder of WADe Asia, is highlighting 4 key trends she spotted at Milan Design Week 2018. Here are the interior and product trends that will shape the future of design:
1. Integration of multiple functionality
Though it is not new to add more than one function in a product, this time I could find a wave of this concept throughout the exhibition. It is not easy to create products or designs with multiple functions in one unit. This challenge has probably tickled the minds of designers to try new ideas. I have spotted chairs with excellent acoustic barriers (Artikepo), a shower spotted that’s also a lamp (Fima Carlo Frattini), a bath that’s also a gym (Scavolini), a cabinet that’s also a speaker (Paulo Cappello) and so on... #SR100DesignsfromMilan2018 has covered them all.
CARUSO: A Cabinet Meant for Music by Paolo Cappello
Cabinet with embedded hi-def Bluetooth speaker, compatible with all smartphones or tablets.
Melograno: A Water-saving Showerhead with Colorful Vibrations
Born from a cooperation between Fima Carlo Frattini and Melogranoblu, an indoor lighting company, Melograno is a stylistic synthesis of the strength of water with the power of light. Inspired by a light installation, it has ten blown-glass spheres, with satin or metallic surface, recall drops of water, floating inside the shower, suspended at different heights through silicone tubes, covered by an elegant steel mesh. They are connected to the ceiling by a disc, with a diameter of 50 cm and a thickness of 4 cm, that serves both as water and light supply. Here we find three white led spotlights that illuminate the spheres, creating evocative reflections and intriguing light effects. Another plus of this showerhead is the guarantee of considerable water saving, that allows to reduce consumptions, only 15 litres of water per minute, without reducing the comfort.
2. Why Waste any Waste
As awareness is growing, designers are searching for waste materials to use for designing meaningful things. Trashplast is plastic made from 100% waste. Check out plug-in chair featured by Surfaces Reporter magazine June issue. It is created by interlocking pieces of woodworking waste materials. "What will happen if an old manufacturing process meets cheap and mass-produced material?" asks Kodai Iwamoto. He uses plastic pipes used for distributing water to make objects by the technique of glass blowing.
Plug-in Chair, made out of Waste!
Design: Martin Oberhauser
Little pieces of wood – the leftovers from woodworking are plugged together without any screws or glue to give rise to the Plug it chair. Studio-oberhauser turned 5,000 individual items into a chair using a plug-in guide. Step by step, anyone can put together their own design object, modify it as required or create their own design installation.
3. A More Tech-Drenched World For So-Called ‘Better Experience’
Milan Design Week saw Google’s debut installation, ‘Softwear,’ an installation that showcased real-life connection with tech. Panasonic showcased ‘Air Inventions’ a huge ‘water-drop pavilion’ that showed their latest air-conditioning technology, allowing visitors to experience the cleanest, purest air in Milan. Miele introduced the world first: the Miele Dialog oven and its innovative M Chef technology.
Google Softwear spotted at Milan Design Week 2018
Panasonic Air Invention spotted at Milan Design Week 2018
4. Design Aiding Fitness, Wellness And Good Living
After wellness, which is continuing to rule the design domain, fitness has taken designers by storm. Last year I wrote about ‘Furniture that aids fitness’ and this year I saw Kengo Kuma’s giant spiralling air-purifying sculpture in the SuperStudio with the ability to absorb the emissions of 90,000 cars per year. It is called ‘breath/ng,’ 6 meters tall and has 120 hand-folded panels. This is the kind of design we need, and I deeply respect Kengo's work. Similarly, young designers were seen showcasing products that aid fitness at work. Scavolini booth had a gym setup integrated with the bathroom. A lady was demonstrating the application to the visitors.
Breath/ng: A Responsive Design on Climate Change and Pollution
Design: Architect Kengo Kuma
Curated by Dassault Systèmes in association with Kengo Kuma and Associates – Breath/ng is an air purifying installation which is able to absorb the equivalent of 90,000 cars worth of pollution. It maximises the use of existing pollution neutralising materials as an architectural unit, and then uses those as building blocks to create an installation that addresses the growing global issue of air pollution, while aiming to inspire designers from across the world, while catering to global topics, like sustainability, in their own work. Kengo used the Dassault’s 3DEXPERIENCE platform to push the materials to their limits by relying on the virtual world to design and test them first.
Breath/ng uses 100 1.2x1.2m units of ‘The Breath’, a cutting-edge fabric comprised of nano-molecule activated core which separates and absorbs polluting and toxic molecules. The fabric uses the natural flow of air to purify the surrounding area and make environments more breathable.
Material: The Breath by Anemotech | www.3ds.com
These design trends have been taken from Surfaces Reporter June 2018 issue ‘100 Designs from Milan’. The print copy can be Subscribed at http://www.surfacesreporter.com/subscription
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