‘Duetti/Duelli. Partite a scacchi sul disegno’

At Archiproducts Milano architects, designers and artists face the practice of design

12/04/2017 – During the Milano Design Week international-famous architects, designers and artists belonging to different generations met in the places of Archiproducts Milano to challenge each other in the ‘design games of chess’. Mario Bellini, Stefano Giovannoni, Paolo Rizzatto, Antonio Marras, Marc Krusin, Atelier Biagetti are some of the protagonists of the national and international cultural scene who recreated the creative moment in a designed dialogue.

Paolo Rizzatto_photo by Archiproducts

The project, entitled “Duetti/Duelli. Partite a scacchi sul disegno (“Duets/Duels. The design games of chess”), was promoted by Archiproducts and A.A.M. Architettura Arte Moderna. Graphic performances, in which several authors, in pairs, face the practice of design on the same sheet of paper.

Mario Bellini_photo by Archiproducts

During the Milano Design Week such graphic dialogues surprisingly came one after the other. The set of such sharing and comparison moments were the places of Archiproducts Milano, set up with the aim of offering a place and instrument of creative participation.

Antonio Marras_photo by Archiproducts

Their trait d’union was Vincenzo D’Alba, architect, artist and designer, who faced the several artists involved. Each Duet was implemented with design instruments provided for by the historical company Vittorio Martini 1866.

With the same seriousness children play, the duellists let themselves be transported in an unprecedented graphic dialogue which traced original and unexpected contents, where autobiographical themes were identified with graphic obsessions, formal researches and architectural forms.

The initiative, conceived by Francesco Moschini and Francesco Maggiore, aims at bringing design back to its vital centrality. For the best Italian artists and architects “designing – the creators underline – has been one of the ways to free themselves from the mere realization dimension in order to refer to new and different possible scenarios for art, places and landscape”.

The choice of creating meeting occasions on design is the common denominator of all these meetings, focussing on the poetics of improvisation through the “pleasure of straying from the topic”.

Marc Krusin_photo by Archiproducts

Stefano Giovannoni_photo by Archiproducts

Emilio Nanni_photo by Archiproducts

Serena Confalonieri_photo by Archiproducts

Emilio Nanni

Mario Bellini

Stefano Giovannoni

Paolo Rizzatto

Mario Bellini

Marc Krusin

Digital Interactions and Networking in a Real Place

Archiproducts shows the new home working look of the building located in via Tortona and opens the Touch Point of the online store

14/04/2017 – Connections, digital interactions and networking for a new ‘Design Experience’. All this in a real place – Archiproducts Milano – where architects, designers and brands can find their inspiration, seize opportunities and explore new synergies.

Since April 3rd the place has already welcomed more than 12 thousand visitors among architects, designers, brands and international press. Milan Design Week 2017 was the occasion to present the new look of the place, where since last year more than 15 thousand professionals have found their ideal home working space, but also to open the Archiproducts Shop Touch Point, the new microscopic but hyperinteractive shop window of the huge online store with thousands of products and brands on sale all over the world. The address is via Tortona 31.

Digital connections and interactions
If in 2016 the opening of Archiproducts Milano brought to an important transition from virtual to real, in the new year there has been a sort of coming back to the digital. All exhibited objects – both those giving shape to the workspace and those designing the ideal living space proposed in the shop – are ‘connected’ with the visitors. Thanks to digital instruments objects are able to ‘communicate’ with visitors, telling everything about their history.

This is what today is defined ‘Phygital’, a new passage from physical to digital in an osmotic synthesis in which these two worlds mutually contaminate. The connection between objects and visitors is possible thanks to the app ‘Archiproducts Scan’, allowing to ‘shazam’ the exhibited furniture. This releases a ‘cookie’ containing information on the features, versions, colours and prices, which are stored on the visitor’s device. In this way the visitor may have a look at those aspects offline, get to know the scanned products in detail and even buy them online.

“We are currently exploring a new retail concept – explains Enzo Maiorano, co-founder of the network – in which the product experience is more important than the mere visual knowledge: visitors can acquire much more information than those given by a single exhibited product. This is the first step of a path bringing visitors and objects closer, which is further developed with the help of technological devices. In this way also buying products online will be much easier”.

The new look of the building
Completely renewed both outside and inside, the new look of the of the spacious, luminous turn-of-the-century apartment was implemented thanks to the cooperation of 45 international brands.

Hundreds of very light gold, black, pink-copper and silver Kriskadecor aluminium chains give rise to the new façade pattern, made upon a design by Serena Confalonieri, which stands out against the total-black background made by Oikos.

The path inside starts from the ground floor at the Archiproducts Shop Touch Point. A charming industrial space made precious thanks to the interventions by Ideal Work – which renewed the flooring using the Architop cement-polymer system laid by ASSOPAV – and by Knauf, which provided the dry construction system for the false ceiling in plasterboard made by Vanoncini, one of the biggest specialised companies in Europe.
The lighting system of the whole ground floor is made by Flos, with Infra-structure by Vincent Van Duysen, the first and currently the greatest installation since the system has been produced.
The archs connecting the different rooms are closed by Linvisibile full-height up-and-over doors.

Here an ideal living space, furnished as a symbolic idea of home, shows the geometry with which Elisa Ossino has interpreted the vynil wallpaper by Texturae. The set also shows the new trends in the field of textiles: the precious blue velvet of the New York chair by Saba with the unprecedented combination of the copper-coloured structure. The powder pink of the façade pattern also finds its place inside with the new version of the Kelly C chair by Tacchini. All these colours are referred to on the Visioni B carpet by Patricia Urqiuola for cc-tapis and are perfectly matched with the lava stone and the new metal black, bronze and rust brownfinishes proposed by Desalto. The set also hosts a BeoVisionAvant TV screen by Bang&Olufsen projecting in real time the 3D visualization and contextualization in the set of any products selected from the archiproducts catalogue thanks to the Virtual Reality technology developed by Sayduck, startup of the Network.

Always on the ground floor another workspace hosts the Buxkin noise-absorbing panels obtained by recycling the natural leather coming from the footwear industry, together with the Emko desks and chairs.

The staircase to the upper floor shows an unexpected outdoor space, covered by a green mantle, identical to natual grass, made with the revolutionary Roofingreen patent. The terrace is furnished with the new SAN collection by Manutti and the outdoor lamps by Bover.

A long corridor brings to the first room, furnished with the new collections by Saba Italia and the carpets by cc-tapis, hung on the walls like paintings. Their first co-branding project in a creative liaison in the poetry of colour and matter.

The corridor opens on a charming indoor-outodoor space, flooded with light from a window-roof and hosting the furniture of the Australian brand SP01.

After passing this space, visitors have access to a wider room perfectly interpreting the idea of home working inside the project of Archiproducts Milano, with the furniture by True Design. Italian brand with a nordic style, it matches natural wood and textiles with very fine shades.

In a space meant to design a big house in which you can work or a welcoming workplace where you can feel like home, kitchen is a must. Specifically made by Strato, with elegant black columns reproducing the classic wood panelling design, the kitchen was used during the Milano Design Week by the recognised chef Enrico Bartolini for the gourmet dinners organised with Archiproducts. The wall of the kitchen top is covered with Trame di Pietra (transl.: stone textures), micro-engravings made on stone with a TWS-patented technology. The room is dominated by the Dome hanging lamp designed by Benedetta Tagliabue for Bover, lighting the Cley oval table by Desalto up, presented in the brand new rust brown finish. The stuffed chair covered in dark green velvet by Montis is perfectly integrated in the context.

Billiani welcomes the visitors in the next room with wooden table and chairs, but also with comfortable armchairs and desks for more informal and relaxed meetings. Here it is possible to see the fiber-reinforced ceramic-plated mortar three-dimensional textures designed by Jacopo Cecchi 3D Surface with one’s own eyes.

On the opposite side of the same floor two other rooms awai visitors. The first room hosts the brightful installation of the New York brand StickBulb. A combination of thin ‘sticks’ made with recycled wood, available from 30 centimetres up to 2 meters length, with a Led stripe on each. A special steel junction system allows to combine them, thus giving rise to different compositions.

The second room hosts the SET Living system by Twils, presented in a new range of fine pastel shades. The same ones selected by Ronel Jordaan for the wool felt acoustic ornamental flowers decorating one of the walls.

Partner
Desalto, Saba Italia, Roofingreen, Buxkin, Velux, Bticino, Flos, cc-tapis, True Design, Oikos, Ideal Work, Knauf, Linvisibile, Mogs, TWS Trame di Pietra, Emko, Manutti, SP01, Texturae, Sciroccoh, 3d Surface, Montis, Twils, Billiani, Ms&Wood, Stickbulb, Bover, Strato Cucine, Bora, Frigo 2000, V-Zug, Sub-Zero, Jee-o, Luctra, Ronel Jordaan, Royal Botania, Falmec, Unical,
Bang and Olufsen, British Fires, Dsignedby, Sayduck

Technical Sponsors
Vittorio Martini, Kriska, Dieffebi, Smeg, Karpeta, Woodskin, Cea, Moab 80, Ethimo, Magis, Tacchini 

Media Partners
Elle Decor, Domus, Index Design Series, Downtown Design, Dubai Design District, Milano Space Makers, Openhouse

Archiproducts in via Tortona is Design Experience

Elle Decor interviews Enzo Maiorano, co-founder and art director of Archiproducts

13/04/2017 – Urban installation, exhibition event, digital interactions and virtual reality in the same location, Archiproducts Milano, for a new ‘design experience’. Elle Decor interviews Enzo Maiorano, co-founder and art director of Archiproducts, and the designer Serena Confalonieri, author of the new façade pattern of the building. Here the text of the interview by Caterina Lunghi.

Milan, Archiproducts in via Tortona 31. On an old façade, a cascade of small aluminium chains composing a graphic pattern of colours and shapes – gold, black, and pink – catches the eye of the visitors of the current edition of the Milan Design Week. It is Archiproducts’s business card for the Fuorisalone: architecture, design, digital world, and, of course, physical space. It is one of the liveliest communities in the international scene, and a reference point for companies, builders, and designers.

An online platform (Archiproducts), a space in Milan, in the heart of via Tortona (photo above), in front of the Mudec, and an app to see the products and the design objects also in 3D (Archiproducts Scan). The project is among the excellences of this year’s Salone del Mobile: an immersive and total experience in the design world.
Cofounder and art director Enzo Maiorano, and Serena Confalonieri, designer, author of the work on the façade, tell us more about it.
Let’s start from the exterior. Serena, can you explain to us the idea of the façade?
It is a composition of shapes and colours that represents the universe of Archiproducts.
I worked with architectural blocks, the same you use on Autocad: doors, arches, and other elements, on scale and on prospect. The design is the fruit of the combination of all these signs, and, through the colours, I came up with this abstract geometry.
Two levels of perception, the first is easy on the eyes and the second is for insiders?
Exactly, at every glance and in every corner you can find architectural elements. And I had to respect the Archiproducts’s identity, so I used yellow and black, its colours, and its language, that of architecture.
Enzo, why yellow and black for the identity of Archiproducts?
Because they are the colours of emergency and safety signs in construction sites. Our roots are in the construction business.
Enzo, let’s step back, can you explain to us the Archiproducts Milano space?
It is the arrival in town of Archiproducts, a shabby, without the ‘chic’, office! 800 Sq m and the concept is: once a year we empty the space, and we use it to show products and ideas of our associated companies, and in 2017 we present 40 of them. This new event at the Fuorisalone becomes the inauguration of the new setting for this year. A physical location that expresses the wide network of Archiproducts. It is Archiproducts online landing on Earth.
Let’s step even further back. You said: Archiproducts online landing on Earth…
Yes, Archiproducts is an online platform market place connecting producers and designers I founded 18 years ago with Ferdinando Napoli, to facilitate commercial relations between companies and professionals. We have thousands of participants, from technical products to decoration, lightning, walls, and furniture. And we also provide an e-commerce selection.
How do design and on-line work together?
Just think that we have a 1000% increase every six months. It is pretty much an avalanche.
And then this location… an opposite path, from online to the street…
Exactly, it is the path we are following: from the web to the city. Both are essential. We opened last year, we entrusted Diego Grandi with the façade (read also Archiproducts Milan Live, Work, Design). This is our second Fuorisalone, and we invited Serena Confalonieri to work on the exterior.
How does this space function during the year?
It is a showroom, but not just that: training, meeting, co-working, presentations. Designers can meet thousands of companies. The ground floor is dedicated to the launches of products you can then buy online: you can see and try them live and, with our partner Sayduck, we created the Archirproducts app, which works like Shazam, with details and information about the items.
So, it is another experience?
Yes, we also play with virtual reality and 3D, you can visualise the products within the rooms and arrange them before buying. Here is the theme of our Fuorisalone: The Design Experience. You come here and you can experience the products fully. This venue in Milan is only the first of a series of hubs.
You want then to broaden your horizons?
Yes, we already took an office at the Dubai Design District. In May, we’ll go to New York, we are scouting with Icff and New York City for Design for an American opening.
We are halfway through Milan Design Week. How is it going, Enzo?
We are in full swing, until yesterday (Wednesday, ed) we had more than 5,000 visitors. Last year, for our debut, we received unanimous support, but this year is even better. And also the Duetti/Duelli (Duets/Duels) we host everyday are going extremely well.
Duetti/Duelli… its sounds captivating… what is it about?
These are chess games on drawing, graphic performances: a project in balance between design and drawing curated by our friends Francesco Moschini and Francesco Maggiore for A.A.M. Architettura Arte Moderna. Architect Vincenzo D’Alba, armed with pencil and paper, deals with many other creatives, so far we had for example Marc Krusin, Paolo Rizzatto and Atelier Biagetti. The next round is scheduled for the morning of April 7, with Antonio Marra; we are then expecting Mario Bellini and Stefano Giovannoni… and maybe, if he can make it, also Tom Dixon will come over.

Materials, Colours and Aesthetic Experimentations

A full immersion on the topic at Archiproducts Milano

30/03/2017 – The knowledge of the several materials is without any doubt a key element of design, both as for the shell of a structure and for its interior design. Finding new materials able to produce new and multi-faceted expressive languages means having a fundamental instrument to give identity to a project. The 2017 edition of Archiproducts Milano, “The Design Experience”, offers a full immersion on the topic with several new solutions which could be analysed in depth.

Cement resin, paints, aesthetic experimentations on marble and stone, three-dimensional surfaces, synthetic grass, recycled leather for acoustic insulation, new metal finishes, geometrical effects on wallpapers, spectacular coatings in aluminium chains up to the new trends in the field of textiles. From April 3rd all this will take shape in the new setting of the bulding at via Tortona 31 inside the rooms dedicated to home working, lighting, living and outdoor open to architects all the year round.

The revelation will appear before entering the building. The new total black look of the façade will show one of the solutions pertaining to colours and matters by Oikos: an environmentally friendly coating of compact materials made up of special silanized siloxane acrylic resins in water dispersion, which also meets the needs of thermal insulation and energy saving.

By looking up you can enjoy the new pattern of the façade, made on a design by Serena Confalonieri, with hundreds of very light anodized aluminium chains Kriskadecor and coloured in gold, black, pink-copper and silver.

Kriskadecor

The path inside starts from the ground floor at the Archiproducts Shop Touch Point. A charming industrial space made precious thanks to the interventions by Ideal Work, which renewed the flooring using the Architopcement-polymer system, and by Knauf, which provided the dry construction system for the false ceiling in plasterboard made by Vanoncini, one of the biggest specialised companies in Europe.

Here an ideal living space, furnished as a symbolic idea of home, will show the geometry with which Elisa Ossino has interpreted the vynil wallpaper by Texturae. The set will also show the new trends in the field of textiles: the brick-coloured velvet of the New York chair by Saba, which is proposed in a precious blue velvet on the upper floor, with the unprecedented combination of the copper-coloured structure; the powder pink of the façade pattern inside, with the new version of the Kelly C chair by Tacchini. All these colours are referred to on the Visioni B carpet by Patricia Urqiuola for cc-tapis and are perfectly matched with the lava stone and the new metal black, bronze and rust brownfinishes proposed by Desalto.

Buxkin

By turning the recycled natural leather coming from the footwear industry into noise-absorbing panels Buxkin will show how functionality can also meet aesthetic needs and find interesting solutions for wall and flooring coatings.

Ronel Jordaan adopts the same approach by proposing wool felt acoustic ornamental flowers.

Ronel Jordaan

It will not be easy to understand if the grass covering the terrace on the first floor is real or not. It will also not be easy to understand it even if the weather allows to walk barefoot! And it will be surprising to discover that beyond that natural softness there is the revolutionary Roofingreen patent: a single green mantle, identical to natural grass, which offers the advantages of an easy maintainance and durability of an industrial product.

Roofingreen

The three-dimensional surfaces will almost be a leitmotif: from the textures in fiber-reinforced ceramic-plated mortar designed by Jacopo Cecchi for 3D Surface to the Wood-Skin ‘digital’ patent, a smart composite material with endless applications, going through the ‘Trame di Pietra’ (transl.: stone textures), micro-gravings on marble and stone able to create very fine worked surfaces as textiles.

3D Surface

TWS

Marble is also used in furniture, combined sometimes with natural wood, sometimes with metal. It is one of the materials chosen for the remake of the Marcel table, designed in 1974 by the Japanese master Kazuhide Takahama for Billiani.

Natural wood is a common element to all rooms of the building: from the collections of the Australian brand SP01 through the working spaces created by True Design with a Scandinavian-brand mood, but which is completely made in Italy, to the furniture by Ms&Wood.

Save the date! From April 3rd at Archiproducts Milano, via Tortona 31.

True Design

Saba Italia

cc tapis

Talking Furniture. Objects provide information at Archiproducts Milan

Physical to digital: products interact with humans in a new “Design Experience”

23/03/2017 – The 2017 Archiproducts Milano edition offers a new ‘Design Experience’ with connected objects, digital interactions, and augmented reality.

Furniture talks to people in the 31 Via Tortona building. Ok, it looks like a joke, but it is true, more than we could be aware of. We are talking about ‘Phygital’ here: a passage from physical to digital in an osmotic synthesis where the two realms blend with each other. This is what is going to happen from April 3rd at Archiproducts Milan: products that shape the new setting will interact with visitors talking to them, telling visitors everything about them via digital devices.

With the Archiproducts Scan app, each object on display releases a ‘cookie’ showing specs, the variants, available colors, and prices. All the information is saved on the visitor’s device. They could later get to know more about the product and purchase it online. This is proximity marketing, it’s the Internet of Things. It’s the future of e-commerce and retail projects as well as the future of houses, Architecture and Interior Design.

‘We are exploring a new retail concept – as Enzo Maiorano, co-founder of the network, says – in which the product experience counts more than the pure visual knowledge. The visitor can acquire much more information compared to what a single displayed product can offer. This is the first step on a path where visitor and object get closer, and the path goes on adding in digital devices. This way also online purchases are simplified.’

The Design Experience will start on the ground floor where the Archiproducts Shop touch point is. A super interactive micro shop window represents the vast online store  that adds thousands of new products and brands every day which are sold worldwide.

Inside the shop, an ideal set will suggest one of the many possible concepts which can be made with the Archiproducts online collection. Thanks to Augmented Reality technology developed by Sayduck, a startup of the network, products can be placed in a 3D representation of the same set, simulating different and multiple furniture combinations.

‘We set up an ideal living – Maiorano continues – symbolizing the idea of a house. Using augmented reality technology visitors can choose a product from the Archiproducts catalog, visualize it in 3D and contextualize it on the set’.

Archiproducts Shop touch point is hosted in a new space in the same building with two shop windows in Via Tortona and also an entrance from the Opificio 31courtyard. An industrial space renovated with the cooperation of new partners who chose to take part in the 2017 edition of Archiproducts Milan.
Oikos gave the building facade a new total black look.
Ideal Work renovated the flooring with the new Architop concrete – polymer system.
Flos made the lighting system with Infra-structure designed by Vincent Van Duysen: the first and presently the largest installation since the system was put into production.
Knauf provided false ceilings, and Vanoncini helped with the installation.
Linvisibile made the all-height tilting doors which close the arches connecting the rooms.

A creative space suggests what can be done with the online Archiproducts items.
Get in touch with products and get inspired!

Feminine stylistic hallmark and new colors for Archiproducts Milan’s new facade

Hundreds of ultralight aluminum chains make up Serena Confalonieri’s design

23/03/2017 – Archiproducts Milano‘s facade changes. New glamorous colors and a stylistic hallmark with a feminine touch. Diego Grandi, the 2016 edition’s project designer, passes the baton to the young Milanese designer Serena Confalonieri, the author of Architypes, a geometric pattern made up of hundreds of ultralight Kriskadecor aluminum chains in gold, black, pink/copper and silver.

SerenaConfalonieri - ph. Sara Magni

‘I accepted the invitation with enthusiasm – the designer says – not only because of the importance of the project but also because of the material with which it will be made. The metal chains, apparently detached, actually offer a highly decorative and expressive potential‘.

Architypes is a fresh project speaking the architects’ and designers’ language. The graphics and nuances take its inspiration from the typical Bauhaus traits, Art Decò, and Gio Ponti’s expressive geometry.

‘I had fun composing graphics gleaning from architecture drawings’ symbols. Doors, windows, stairs, landings, arches, battlements, electric symbols, and furniture. Playing with colors and compositions, I created a lively image which shows different details at every new glance‘. This is how the young designer describes Architypes.

The pattern colors are in sheer contrast with the total black building surface by Oikos.

I wanted to create cohesion with Archiproducts’ image using black and yellow: its brand colors. At the same time, I also wanted to soften this contrast adding pastel colors like pink and gray which shifted the aesthetics of this project towards the expression of an encounter between the technical and the decorative elements‘.

fotoinserimento Architypes

The distinctive trait of the material, dynamic and fickle, pushed the designer to use colors that recall metals’ purity so to enhance the decor further and make light reflection during the day a fundamental element of the project.

The approach in creating a dynamic surface with hundreds of moving metal chains – Serena says – is not that far from the approach that I usually have on a static surface. In this case, the stairs made the difference. Working on a facade involves an architectural analysis based on the stairs because it has in itself the signs, the proportions and being an architectural element it has its life. For this reason, I thought about a modularity-based upon the facade’s rhythm so to support its variations during the day. I also wanted to blend with the lines of the windows and the cornices for a continuous dialogue between surface and cladding‘.

fotoinserimento Architypes_interno

EVENT INFO
“The Design Experience” @Archiproducts Milano
Via Tortona 31 – Metro: Porta Genova
4 – 9 April / h 10 – 21
EVENTBRITE LINK:
https://www.eventbrite.it/e/biglietti-the-design-experience-32728692400

Press preview 
April 3rd  / h 15 – 19
EVENTBRITE LINK:
https://www.eventbrite.it/e/biglietti-archiproducts-milano-press-preview-32815587305

Partner
Desalto, Saba Italia, Roofingreen, Buxkin, Velux, Bticino, Flos, cc-tapis, True Design, Oikos, Ideal Work, Knauf, Linvisibile, Mogs, TWS Trame di Pietra, Emko, Manutti, SP01, Texturae, Sciroccoh, 3d Surface, Montis, Twils, Billiani, Ms&Wood, Stickbulb, Bover, Strato Cucine, Bora, Frigo 2000, V-Zug, Sub-Zero, Jee-o, Luctra, Ronel Jordaan, Royal Botania, Falmec, Unical,
Bang and Olufsen, British Fires, Dsignedby, Sayduck

Technical Sponsors
Vittorio Martini, Kriska, Dieffebi, Smeg, Karpeta, Woodskin, Cea, Moab 80, Ethimo, Magis, Tacchini 

Media Partners
Elle Decor, Domus, Index Design Series, Downtown Design, Dubai Design District, Milano Space Makers, Openhouse 

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