Milan, March 5, 2020

Today I connected with “SUPER STUDIO DESIGN”, in connection with the designers Giulio Cappellini, Aldo Cibic and Gisella Borioli for a meeting on the theme of the rebirth of design in Covid’s time.

Behind a market situation in which we used to surround ourselves with the superfluous, to buy excessively in a market saturated with Chinese products, bad copies, thanks to overproduction and Low Cost items from the Design to Fashion sector: unweighted purchases, where the the key word is quantity at the expense of the quality of Made in Italy.

Will we be more aware in the future?

This is the new challenge: buying less but buying quality, which is true has a higher cost but a Chinese copy is not the same as the design object studied in the forms and materials, more and more ecological, and which is able to last in the time and accompany us for a lifetime.

The design object conceived with love for art and beauty, Design that resists fashions and decades.

We need a New Renaissance.

Even the spaces will no longer be the same, from shared to personal ones such as the home.

Designers and architects have a responsibility to redesign new spaces where they can read, work, cook and relax. There is a need for a revolution in the construction sector. It takes more attention to the functionality of spaces and needs.

A new challenge, that for architects, to build new homes, small but where spaces are designed to be lived in total living: the kitchen becomes a place where you can work in smart working and the bathroom our new Spa. The Living it is the new Gorà of the new life that awaits us, like the “CACTUS” project by Aldo Cibic, each space is conceived on the basis of needs, from work to relaxation.

No longer large houses, even if availability allows us, the new must is to reconcile a peaceful life with your work, increasingly possible thanks to work from home, small but well-studied spaces.

So houses also located outside the cities, in open spaces in contact with nature. A need that was felt strongly due to the confinement from Covid. Here we rediscover new spaces such as terraces, the new Out Door, the new outdoor space that can be conceived with a new lighting. An example is the roof garden in Milan, for social purposes, whose products are donated to the needy families of the city: a terrace that becomes therapeutic, reconnects us with nature and becomes a way to ease psychological stress. We start with flowers and aromatic plants and then get to strawberries and cherry tomatoes. The terrace becomes our outdoor space to live fully and in absolute freedom.

Now let’s talk about public spaces, the new real challenge, where it will be necessary to protect the health of each subject: here we use plexiglass and we are looking for new ecological, light, easily movable materials. More and more companies are approaching research, 360 degrees, new projects, a production conscious of climate change, an integrity relationship with nature, eco-design materials.

The internal spaces will move outside, in a new conception of the activities.

The new problems are the new solutions to pollution, the new synergy with the environment: smart working, less crowding on public transport, smoother roads, less fine particles. In short, a new way of experiencing the city.

Finally, let’s talk about public events, even in the design sector, there has been a dizzying drop in turnover for the sales and trade fairs sectors, all appointments have been canceled.

We need to invest and redesign the spaces of events.

There is a need to reinvent yourself with new forms and ways to organize events: endless queues outside the salons will no longer be conceivable. It will be necessary to limit and select the guests and open the new frontier of the virtual connection: much has been invested in catalogs and design books but not in the virtual one, because the impact was less, today it is a focal point.

It is not enough to connect to an event to get excited through the screen, you have to invest: the idea is the 3D or the holograms that appear to the viewer giving the perception of being present at the event and then design objects that materialize giving the impression of to be able to touch them. The emotion of reality is difficult to match or overcome. We need to improve the quality of the virtual but this is only possible with major investments.

It is an important moment for Made in Italy, you need to know how to give immediate answers, you have to sell old products, new collections can wait for 2021. Shops can become Ateliers where importance focuses less on the product but on the customer and his needs.

We close with the keywords of ours:

altruism, courage and positivity, new alliances. The future of Art, Fashion and Design is entirely Italian!

Image from MAXXY, National Museum of the XXI Arts