Hasta La Ideas

We got the rundown on some favorite Italian standbys at Piccoli Oggetti Italiani, a pop-up display at 121+, the temporary-turned-permanent outpost of Italian design publisher Corraini. Watch the video tour above for some hand-picked design artifacts from everyday Milanese life, including a light switch by Achille Castiglioni.

LIbreria 121+
via Savona, 17/5
Milano

(more…)

Botanica, by Studio Formafantasma, is the most captivating material project we’ve seen in a while, exploring the world of historical and natural plastics. The Italian foundation Plart, dedicated to the research, recovery and innovation in the plastic arts, invited the dup to explore polymeric materials. Simone Farresin walks us through a small part of the series below.

Instead of reworking the familiar petroleum-based substances we all associate with the word “plastic,” the studio has instead stepped way back, looking at the origins of botany, observing that the discipline arose around the human search for identifiable plants with edible, medicinal or craft-based purposes. The Botanica collection is designed as though petroleum-based plastics were never discovered, and investigates the “unexpected textures, feelings and technical possibilities offered by natural polymers extracted from plants or animal-derivatives.”

The vases, tables, surfaces and lamps in this collection were formed from a combination of rosin, dammar, copal, rubber, shellac and bois durci (a combination of sawdust, animal blood and albumen).

For the studio, the project calls for a movement to a new “post-oil era,” where consumers no longer rely on industry to provide plasticity in artifacts of everyday life.

Read more about their project here.

Lots of shots after the jump.

(more…)

We are loving the new furniture that DC-based Atelier Takagi showed at Salone Satellite in Milan this year—he’s been busy since we last saw him at ICFF, presenting five pieces that draw references from streetscapes, film shoots, tea ceremonies, and building construction.

A favorite is Big Bounce, “inspired by lighting techniques used on film sets”—turns out reflective bounce is also a nice way to temper the hardness of high power LEDs. The lamp is made of FSC Certified White Oak, powdercoated laser cut steel.

More projects from Atelier Takagi follow.

(more…)

After a ten-year run “Zona Tortona” has been taken over by a new organization and rebranded as “Tortona Design Week.” Aside from the name change, it was business as usual in the industrial quarter with design destination Superstudio Più receiving over 120,00 visitors this year. Not shy of using a bit of drama, Moooi won the self-promotion award with their bright yellow-branded chairs chained around the neighborhood. Check out the gallery for our picks including work from Stefan Diez, Marcel Wanders, David Trubridge, Lindsey Adelman, and Karim Rashid.

» View Gallery

(more…)

To make these bowls, twenty dollars worth of quarters and nickels were melted and dripped over a form.

This year in Milan, Nathan D. Paoletta debuted More Than It’s Worth, a series of bowls drip-casted from 20 dollars worth of nickels, quarters, demerara sugar, and blank dvds (which we were told were blowtorched into shape).

The project is part of Loaded, presented by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago at Spazio Rossana Orlandi. The exhibition, developed over two semesters, explored the potentials of two historically catalytic materials: iron and sugar. Nathan’s work investigates physical expressions of value, reconfiguring familiar metrics by which we understand worth. The bowl shape provides a familiar lens through which we can compare the physical aspects of $20 worth of sugar to $20 worth of DVDs.

More photos after the jump.

Three of the four pieces in the series.

(more…)