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EUR 35.00 | USD 45.00 | wonder.ifdm.design

Summer 2024

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art direction: studio FM milano photo: Andrea Garuti set design & styling: Studio Salaris

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VARA | 2024 Design Verter Turroni

FEATURES

Summer 2024

Color stories

The color breakdown

Interviews

PEOPLE Pallavi Dean

Empathetic Design

PEOPLE AB Concept

It’s all about being

PEOPLE Storagemilano

166 Space and material

02 YEAR IX

Summer

Publisher

Paolo Bleve | bleve@ifdm.it

Editor-in-Chief

Ruben Modigliani | ruben@ifdm.it

Projects review Palazzo Cordusio Gran Meliá Milan

Open luxury

Norba Kyiv

Delving into the essential

Casa Ulìa Caprarica di Lecce, Italy

WONDER 16 Venini 18 Antoniolupi

Vernacular architecture 2.0

Arthotel Lasserhaus Brixen, Italy A bridge between the past and future Gearbox Montreal

20 Cassina 60 Minotti 62 Boffi|DePadova 64 Lasvit

Pop culture and 90s nostalgia

Interno Marche Tolentino, Italy Find your favorite room Ambra Copenhagen

160 Poltrona Frau 162 Poliform 164 Kettal 208 Ethimo 210 Giorgetti

Simple design for an easy evening out

A96 Arcadia An ode to lightness La Roqqa Porto Ercole, Italy

212 Andreu World

Design and genius loci

Link Lab Kortrijk, Belgium

170 An office for everyone Palau Fugit Girona, Spain

176 A beguiling history Private apartment Madrid

184 Madrid in a room EHB Shanghai

190 One restaurant, two cultures Livesport Prague

196 The art of fair play The Lana Dubai

202 Bohemian soul in Dubai 4 | IFDM

Deputy Editor

Alessandra Bergamini alessandra@ifdm.it

Senior Editor

Giulia Guzzini | redazione@ifdm.it

Editor-at-Large

Veronica Orsi | orsi@ifdm.it

Collaborators

Laura Barsottini, Manuela Di Mari, Riccardo Fornoni, Francisco Marea, Wilson Polegato, Teo Sandigliano

International Contributors New York | Anna Casotti

Web Department redazione@ifdm.it

Sales & Marketing Director Dario Rossi | dario@ifdm.it

Brand Relations

Matteo De Bartolomeis | matteo@ifdm.it Camilla Guffanti | camilla@ifdm.it Annalisa Invernizzi | annalisa@ifdm.it

Graphic Department

Marco Parisi | grafica@ifdm.it

Translations

Miriam Hurley, Annabel Little

Advertising

Marble/ADV Tel. +39 02 40701449 - info@ifdm.it

Closed by the editorial staff 7th June 2024

Owner and Publisher Marble srl

Head office and Administration

Corso Venezia 8 - 20121 Milano, Italy Tel. +39 02 40701449 - www.ifdm.design

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Elcograf Spa - Verona, Italy All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. A record and picture file is available at Marble.

Summer 2024

Let’s keep in touch!

FEATURES

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Design inspirations

A selection of the most innovative products for the contract sector by international brands

Living in the present 98

Lighting 110

116

Interior architecture

170

Margraf | Marmo Arredo | Scavolini | Simas

190

Complement-object 152

Passwords

214 Ideas from Milano Design Week 2024

Short Stories

223 A wide view on major international projects

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EDITORIAL

Summer 2024

RUBEN MODIGLIANI Editor-in-Chief

The sum of its parts

n the 1958 movie Auntie Mame, the main character, played by a dazzling Rosalind Russell, every so often dramatically changes the look of her New York apartment in a whirlwind of exuberant styles. The architecture is a mere container and the furnishings mere props for the star. In contrast, in this new publication, which brings the .Wonder Books to four yearly editions, we can feel when the spark is lit between the container (the architecture) and the content (furnishings), because they interpret the same idea of space, functionality, and, in a sense, life’s ritual quality. The relationship between a space and the furnishing we choose to place within it is not random nor only utilitarian – every piece helps define its essence. For each photo shoot, we emphasized this concept by putting a selection of furnishings in the mood of that particular project. We chose to tell the story of Milano Design Week – the design sector’s most important event – with a first-hand report, rich in details and atmospheres, to bring together the season’s most significant trends in a series of moodboards. In the film, Powers of Ten, Charles and Ray Eames suggest that the infinitely small and the infinitely large have much in common. This applies, of course, to architecture and design too. When the design is cohesive, the whole has a much greater value than its individual parts. And, as Ernesto Nathan Rogers put it, the designer’s range goes “from the spoon to the city.” Enjoy!

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CURATOR’S LETTER

Summer 2024

ALESSANDRA BERGAMINI Deputy Editor

A love triangle

his new .Wonder Book Summer is a journey of words and many images, taking us through a design directory of 60 pages (and 110 products), three interviews, and 15 recent interior design projects in hospitality, residences, and workplaces. We move through different scales and aesthetics, exploring everything from the detail of shapes and materials to the full project. On the way, the spotlight is cast on the excellent work of the makers of individual products. We also spotlight the equally complex work of designers on the spaces and their interpretation, the choice of furnishings and their composition in different environments and functional areas, the behavior of people and the use of places, and, significantly, the work that designers pursue together with their clients. As Pallavi Dean puts it in her interview, “As designers, we watch human behavior, and create spaces that support that behavior. We are great listeners, we feel that we can only create a successful design if we are empathetic and hone our listening skills.” The triangle between client, designer, and user is a multifaceted, “loving” relationship that takes clarity, understanding, creativity, and material and emotional satisfaction, as well as a sense of surprise. These elements must be in a virtuous circle to achieve a full, complex project that represents a contextualized, shared idea of beauty. This beauty often manifests itself starting first from the details as so well demonstrated by the visual stories in these .Wonder Books.

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Summer 2024

WONDER

MILAN DESIGN WEEK | SALONE DEL MOBILE.MILANO | VENINI Gio Ponti was one of the many great designers that Venini has collaborated with over the years. Venini paid tribute to this excellent creative liaison, unveiling its collection of pieces (some released for the first

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WONDER

time) that Ponti designed in the late 1940s. One such product is the Donna Campigliesca bottle, made with the “incalmo” technique; three different-colored parts form the body, and a fourth color is the stopper.

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Summer 2024

WONDER

Like a sculpture, Mauro Ferrarini’s Cuba bathtub for Antoniolupi is made of straight-lined outer surfaces with soft hollowed shapes and small proportions (L 125 x W 75 x H 70 cm).

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Summer 2024

WONDER

MILAN DESIGN WEEK | FUORISALONE | CASSINA

Inspired by the Haori jacket, worn over the kimono, the Hayama sideboard, by Patricia Urquiola for Cassina, features bright colors, and varied textures – smooth and ribbed – heightened by glossy lacquer.

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OUTDOOR LIVING

VENICECOLLECTION D E S I G N B Y L U D O V I C A S E R A F I N I + R O B E R T O PA L O M B A

Summer 2024

COLOR STORIES

Trend

The color breakdown The new ethos is all about modularity, easy disassembly, and repairability to envision, design, and use products with an eye to sustainable longevity. ColorWorksTM has absorbed this mood and translated it into an original, playful, and vibrant color palette Author: Veronica Orsi

olor trends for 2025 are guided – at least in part – by design’s ethos since its origins of a balanced union of form and function. This inspiration is based on a global trend that ColorWorks™ has identified and translated into a moodboard with keywords, associated with an emotional sphere and five specific colors. This is the basis for each “Color Story,” of which there are four, forming an authoritative guide to the color forecasts for the coming year, known as ColorForward™ 2025. The ColorWorks™ international team spotlights major emerging trends that may influence the response of future consumers and creates a palette of 20 colors associated with these trends. Next year’s color trends are defined by little saturated hues, with no intense colors, generally neutral but with a few touches of vibrancy. As Roberto Romanin, senior designer of ColorWorks™ says, “This tendency is because we are experiencing a period of instability and insecurity in many parts of the world. Blue recurs along with ‘complex’ greens and standard oranges in keeping with previous trends. Some color families that were dominant in the past, like pure yellows and reds, are completely absent here. Interference colors are omnipresent, reflecting the constant pursuit of balance, heightening the sense of disorientation that has dominated in recent years.” The “Easy Peasy” story is about some of these hues, following the “Carpe Mortem” story described in the last Wonder Book. Along with “Elevens” and “Destination Salvation,” these four trends make up ColorForward™ 2025. “Easy Peasy” puts the focus on products and a new approach to design whose key values are modularity, repairability, and ease of disassembly. 22 | IFDM

Summer 2024

PEOPLE

EMPATHETIC DESIGN Designing for Pallavi Dean means observing human behavior and creating places for work, living, and culture that fit the people and how they use them (and own them) on a physical and emotional level

he architect Pallavi Dean is an active, prominent figure in the design community of the United Arab Emirates. With Indian origins, raised in Dubai, she worked for many years in London and founded her studio Pallavi Dean Interiors in Dubai in 2013, renamed Roar in 2018. After over 80 projects completed in the Middle East, in the sectors of hospitality, residences, and workspaces, the studio’s short-term goal is to expand and open new offices in Saudi Arabia first and then in Mumbai so that it can support its clients on the ground. Roar’s design philosophy is rooted in being listeners and forging a relationship of great understanding and empathy with clients, even to the point of working with an in-house psychologist. She explains in this conversation, “At Roar, we are great listeners and work with empathy to understand what our clients want and need before producing design solutions. My design process is intuitive and based on deep empathy. My approach is collaborative and not ego-driven.”

author: Alessandra Bergamini portrait photo: Courtesy of Roar projects photo: Yasser Ibrahim (Jaipur Rugs showroom, Oliver Wyman office), Oculis Project (Th8 Hotel), Chris Goldstraw (Sheraa)

Pallavi Dean

Which project(s) do you consider seminal for the firm? Sheraa, a not-for-profit entrepreneurship center we worked on about 11 years ago. It was within the American University of Sharjah where I got my first degree in architecture from. Designing this incubator and collaboration space for the next generation of entrepreneurs was a real delight and a beautiful full-circle moment for me as a former design student and entrepreneur. Could you explain how your User Experience Design method works? As designers, we watch human behaviour, and create spaces that support that behaviour. This is at the core of what we do. Empathetic design is the underlying philosophy that has constantly driven the firm forward. When we say ‘empathy-based design’, we mean putting the users of the space at the centre of it. For example, we don’t start our design process until our client has had a one-to-one conversation with our in-house psychologist. We feel that we can only create a successful design if we are empathetic and hone our listening skills. I trust that by understanding the people who will use a space, we can create designs that meet their needs holistically. This empathetic lens allows me to design spaces that align with their users on a deeper level, promoting a sense of belonging and well-being. For a recent office space we designed for a global law firm, we held a series of focus groups with the local team to determine what key requirements needed to be met in the new office, both from practical and well-being perspectives. It was a fair process in which everyone’s needs and desires were heard and incorporated into the design. What is your approach to environmental and social sustainability? My approach is collaborative and not ego-driven. When it comes to designing with the environment in mind, I bring this same level of careful thought to specifications and detailing. We also

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Summer 2024

PEOPLE

Pallavi Dean

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