The Top Architect-Designed Products of Milan Design Week 2014

This week marked the 53rd edition of the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan. Hundreds of exhibitors showcased an endless display of the latest international design products and home-furnishings. Among them included a variety of designed items envisioned by some of our favorite architects. Continue after the break to preview some of the most talked about architect-designed products featured this week at the Milan Design Week 2014.

Benedetta Tagliabue for Passoni Nature: Sofa ‘BOTAN’

A comfortable wood and fabric seat whose components join like the petals of a flower, producing endlessly harmonious, balanced combinations, inspired by nature.

David Adjaye for Knoll: The Washington Skeleton and Skin 

David Adjaye’s cantilevered chairs establish a play between propping and balancing, so that they are simultaneously functional and sculptural. Washington Skeleton is reduced to a fine geometric lattice while its inverted counterpoint, Skin, offers a colorful envelope to the same form.

Zaha Hadid for Citco: Tela Shelving 

According to design aficionado Lisa Roberts, Zaha Hadid’s new shelving collection with Citco “blurs the boundaries of art and design.”

UNStudio for Artifort: Gemini

Gemini comprises two asymmetrically-designed seat elements and a small matching table to offer plenty of scope for variation.

Daniel Libeskind for Poliform: Web

Just like the Internet allows users to browse and use a collection of contents which are connected to each other by links, WEB – with its alternating blocks and voids – presents a brand new bookcase concept with a strong visual impact and devised for the most disparate uses.

Nendo for Emeco: The SU Collection 

Su, a traditional Japanese concept meaning minimal, served as the primary inspiration for this new collection of stools and tables made from reclaimed materials.

MVRDV for Sixinch: Vertical Village

The Vertical Village: a self-organized and initiated manner of city building inspired by richness of informality found in East Asian settlements prior to being overcome by economically-driven block towers. 

Charles & Ray Eames (1958) for Vitra: Aluminium Chair EA 101, EA 103, EA 104

Vitra has now launched models EA 101, 103 and 104 that belonged to the original 1958 product family and was first marketed as the Aluminium Dining Chairs, expanding the selection of chairs in the Aluminium Group with models that are smaller, lighter and brighter. 

Nendoprint-chair

A chair whose surface mixes two different patterns, created by printing woodgrain patterns onto wood with an already distinctive grain.

Daniel Libeskind for Lasvit: ICE

A bold, geometric chandelier that achieves a ‘one-of-a-kind’ luminosity through the delicate and fluid quality of hand-blown glass.

Compare this year’s participation with the top architect-designed products of the Milan Design Week 2013.

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Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture

New Wave Architecture‘s proposal (one of eight) for the 2015 Milan Expo demonstrates an essence of Iran brought together in a series of organic forms. The expo’s theme, Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life, is encapsulated the designer’s exploration of the trace of cookery in culture, literature and Iranian art. The conceptual idea behind New Wave’s proposal, The Persian Garden, reflects the cycle of a tree: the organism is fed by the soil, grows and blossoms, before nourishing people and spreading throughout the earth “to asset its support.”

According to the architects, “the tree offers a pleasant space on its shadow, carries natural ventilation and becomes a rain shelter in the rainy days of Milan.” “’s pavilion should be an alluring depiction of its long-time civilization, art, historical characteristics and cultural events with having close connection with agronomics, food and technology.”

“Reminding the structure of the dome and various transition techniques in historical Persian monuments, from polygonal shapes to circular forms in the Persian architecture we impel to extract the parametric pattern of the Sheikh Lotfo-Allah dome in Isfahan seamlessly whilst interplaying with light and shade and integrating the architecture with its structure.”

“As a consequence of the continuous arches and open areas alongside the water stream, natural ventilation is deduced throughout the pavilion. Meanwhile the rain water is re-collected, stored in a tank, filtered and distributed to the lower parts of the area for re-use, lavation etc. Solar panels are efficiently angled on the roof to receive an important amount of sunlight for providing a high percentage of energy required for the pavilion.”

Architects: New Wave Architecture
Architects: Lida Almassian, Shahin Heidari
Design Associates: Zahra Hamedani, Helaleh Alaei, Mohammad Keshavarzi, Fatemeh Dehghani, Soheila Zahedi,Golnaz Baharami, Mona Ramzi, Maryam Shokouhi, Sara Milani Nia
Year: 2015
Photographs: Courtesy of New Wave Architecture

Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Courtesy of New Wave Architecture
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Courtesy of New Wave Architecture
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Courtesy of New Wave Architecture
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Courtesy of New Wave Architecture
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Courtesy of New Wave Architecture
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Courtesy of New Wave Architecture
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Courtesy of New Wave Architecture
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Courtesy of New Wave Architecture
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Courtesy of New Wave Architecture
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Model. Image Courtesy of New Wave Architecture
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Model. Image Courtesy of New Wave Architecture
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Plans
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Parametric shape diagrams
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Plans
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Plan: connection with precedent
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Climate and Ventilation Diagrams
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Circulation
Competition Entry: Iran Pavilion (Expo Milan 2015) / New Wave Architecture Sunlight

References: Milan Expo 2015

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On View> A Report From the 2013 Milan Triennale

The current Milan Triennale exhibition, running through December 2013, is on view in the city’s Palace of Art building, part of Parco Sempione, the park grounds adjacent to Castello Sforzesco. Nancy Goldring visited the exhibit for AN and reports back on the highlights of the exhibit. When you enter the Milan Triennale, there is a […]

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