Disegno at Milan Design Week 2023
Danuta Kril’s Myska #2 Guculia.Tini bowl, featured in ‘Bowl of Shadows’, Disegno#35 (image: Fabian Frinzel).
It’s that time of year again: Milan Design Week is just around the corner, with the creative industries due to descend upon the city for its annual panoply of launches, installations and events. Suffice to say, Disegno will be front and centre in that descent.
Throughout the week, we’ll be reporting news and opinion from across the festival, while we’re also proud to say that, for the first time ever, Disegno will have two publications on newsstands for the duration of the week: Design Reviewed #1 and the soon-to-be-released Disegno #35.
On top of this new issue, we’re also delighted to be launching series two of our podcast series Where Next? Conversations with Map Project Office, the release of which will be marked with two live public discussions with Map, hosted at Alcova on Monday 17 and Tuesday 18 April.
Alongside this, we’ve partnered with Moooi on a panel talk taking place on Wednesday 19 April at Salone dei Tessuti, which will explore the potential for designers to strike up meaningful partnerships with artificial intelligence – with the rise of new AI technologies, how will the role of the designer change going forward?
Disegno will also moderate a live Q&A with designer Ilse Crawford hosted by Zanat, a design brand that works with a UNESCO World Heritage listed woodcarving technique from Konjic, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Disegno’s editor-in-chief Oli Stratford will be in conversation with Crawford at Teatro Litta.
And, finally, we’re very proud to have worked with ECAL on U.F.O.G.O., a university project exploring the potential for new potential designs for wind turbines on Fogo Island, Canada. ECAL will be hosting an exhibition of the project’s outcomes at Spazio Orso, for which Disegno has worked with the school to produce an accompanying publication.
Full details of Disegno’s events and activities for Milan Design Week follow below – and don’t forget to RSVP.
Project 213A’s Foot Stool, featured in ‘Best Foot Forward’, Disegno#35 (image: Fabian Frinzel).
Disegno #35
Following the success of Design Reviewed #1 and its focus on the users of design, we’ve revamped the categories for Disegno with an emphasis on designers and the making process. We’re excited to share the results when Disegno #35 launches in Milan.
The lineup for Disegno #35 includes: the philosophy of Nifemi Marcus Bello’s exploration of informal design from the streets of Lagos; Front’s development of a modern process for collecting ancient forests; the distribution of resources for the homeless with ProxyAddress; how bricks made from construction waste can build better cities; Studio Raw Material’s material exploration of Makrana marble; the pilot of Citibin’s containerisation scheme to design out rats in the context of New York City; a collaboration between Fabien Cappello and the hojalata maestros of Guadalajara; Claude Dutson’s research into the secretive architecture of Silicon Valley; and feedback from the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen’s climate control system during the energy crisis.
Make sure your subscription is up to date to be one of the first to get your hands on Disegno #35.
Where Next? Conversations with Map Project Office
In 2022, we worked with Map Project Office to create Where Next? Conversations with Map Project Office, a podcast series in which expert panels from across design and technology examine a pressing social issue and discuss how design may be able to make a difference.
We’re now delighted to be launching season two of the series, with the first episode available to stream this spring. To celebrate this, Map and Disegno will host aperitivo talks at Alcova during Milan Design Week to explore some of the big questions facing design and technology today.
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Where Next? Is there a purpose to design weeks?
Monday 17 April, 4-6.30pm
La Loggia, Alcova, Viale Molise 62, 20137, Milan
RSVP here
Where Next? Does tech shape our homes or do our homes shape our tech?
Tuesday 18 April, 4-6.30pm
La Loggia, Alcova, Viale Molise 62, 20137, Milan
RSVP here
Tweaking is Optional
Do you foresee a future where AI-led design changes the role of the designer? From being the primary creative figure in the design process, will the designer instead migrate to the position of an instigator and editor?
To explore these ideas, Disegno has partnered with Moooi on a public panel discussion, Tweaking is Optional, which will investigate the potential for artificial intelligence in design. What happens when designers begin to engage with modes of AI creation, and where, in this partnership, lie the opportunities and implications?
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Tweaking is Optional: How can design brands meaningfully engage with AI?
Wednesday 19 April, 5pm drinks (talk starts at 6:00pm)
Salone dei Tessuti, Via S. Gregorio 29, 20124, Milan
RSVP here
The Touch bench by Ilse Crawford for Zanat (image: Zanat).
Craftsmanship Conversations No1: Ilse Crawford & Hugo Macdonald
Zanat is a design brand based in Bosnia and Herzegovina that creates contemporary furniture informed by a traditional woodcarving technique found in the town of Konjic: a handcraft tradition that the brand successfully campaigned to have inscribed on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2017. One of the company’s long-term collaborators is designer Ilse Crawford, founder of Studioilse.
During Milan Design Week, Zanat will premiere the first in a new series of films exploring the significance of craft in the 21st century. Shot and directed by Gavin Elder, the film sees Crawford in conversation with writer and curator Hugo MacDonald.
The film will premiere on 20 April at Teatro Litta, following which Crawford will participate in a live Q&A session moderated by Disegno’s editor-in-chief, Oli Stratford.
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Craftsmanship Conversations No1: Ilse Crawford & Hugo Macdonald
Thursday 20 April, 6pm
Teatro Litta, Corso Magenta, 24, 20123 Milan
zanat.org
Fogo Island, photographed as part of the U.F.O.G.O. project (image: ECAL / Jasmine Deporta).
U.F.O.G.O.
Fogo Island is a remote fishing community of some 2,500 people off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The island is also home to Shorefast, a local initiative using design and other tools to help build a more resilient and sustainable community and economy for the island.
In 2022, at the invitation of Shorefast, Switzerland’s ECAL university of art and design partnered with engineers from HEIG-VD on a speculative project for the island. Sixteen students from ECAL’s Master Product Design course visited Fogo Island, exploring whether design could help to sensitively embed wind turbines in its natural landscape.
Paying attention to the island’s social and environmental context, as well as the demands placed upon turbines by engineering and legislative concerns, the students developed eight proposals for new turbine designs that could help contribute to building energy resilience for Fogo Island. The results of this project, U.F.O.G.O., will be exhibited in Milan.
To do justice to the richness and complexity of the project, ECAL partnered with Disegno on a publication exploring all aspects of U.F.O.G.O., from the turbine designs themselves, to discussions around the context of Fogo Island, and the history of wind’s impact on humanity’s technological development.
The publication is included as an insert in Disegno #35, but standalone copies will also be available at ECAL’s exhibition.
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U.F.O.G.O.
18-22 April, 11am-8pm; 23 April, 11am-4pm
Spazio Orso 16, Via dell’Orso 16, 20121, Milan
ecal.ch