13 DESSERTS


Website: https://www.13desserts.fr
IG: @13.desserts

13Desserts develops, under the impetus of Clément ROUGELOT and Kevin DOLCI, a collection that explores new production schemes combining industrial processes and craftsmanship. With a panel of ten designers, the collection is today the result of a reasoned dialogue between technology, strong identity and contemporary use. Our vision and our practices drive us today to develop and promote bold creations through collaborations with avant-garde designers and craftsmen from diverse backgrounds. This bias allows us to explore new production approaches and respond to an intention of sustainable consumption. Our objects, accessories and pieces of furniture produced in France and in Italy on a human scale, arise from a close collaboration between the designers, the label and the craftsmen. Our vision and our practices drive us today to develop and promote bold creations through collaborations with avant-garde designers and craftsmen from diverse backgrounds.

Adrian Cruz Elements &Sandro Giulianelli


Website: https://www.adriancruzelements.com
IG: @adriancruzelements @sandrogiul

Sandro from Italy, Adrian from Mexico, both graduated in architecture from the University of Florence. Their training is strongly influenced by Renaissance architecture and by the experiments of “radical design,” which had its origins in Florence in the 1970s. The crystalline stereometry of their creations combines classical geometries and new materials. Memories of the two-tone colors of Tuscan monuments and the bright colors of Mexico echo in the solid furniture, anchored to the ground as Leon Battista Alberti and Barragàn´s architectures.

The collection is inspired by the ephemerality of universe matter. Light and color merge in the translucent material, where a dense hue dissolves until it disappears. The rigorous, geometric shapes contain an organic flow of colored matter.

Ae Office /
"Unearthed Island"

Designer: Hee Choi, Myung Nyun Kim
Collaborators: Jeju Magazine iiin
Website: http://aeoffices.com
IG: @aeoffices

“Unearthed Island” explores the unique stone culture in Jeju island of South Korea and presents reinterpreted collections inspired by the stories of making full use of given volcanic materials by the Jeju people.

Jeju, a volcanic island formed in the Cenozoic Era, has over 90 percent of its land covered with volcanic rocks and ash. Adapting to the harsh landscape where the rocky terrain made farming extremely difficult, Jeju people have developed unique cultural traditions distinct from mainland Koreans. As it was often said that the Jeju people were born out of stone and return to stone, the lava stones have been both a part of their lives and something to be overcome.

Ae Office, an industrial design studio exploring local cultures through the eyes of a stranger, has spent the past two years in Jeju, collecting stories surrounding the culture of a volcanic island and how people have coexisted with the volcanic stones and soil.

Together with Jeju iiin, a Jeju-based content curation magazine, the exhibition illuminates stories excavated from Jeju island and introduces two series of collections using culture on the lava stones as a material: a collection of objects made from locally sourced volcanic clay using traditional earthenware technique 'Jeju Onggi', as well as a set of stools inspired by the endless basalt stone walls around the island piled up for various purposes.

Agglomerati x Tom Fereday /
"Cor"

Designer: Tom Fereday
Website: http://agglomerati.com
http://tomfereday.com
IG: @tom_fereday @agglomerati

Cor is a series of towering, illuminated sculptures, each one exuding a gravity that speaks to the fundamental nature of stone. Named after the Latin word for “heart,” Cor alludes to Earth as an organism, taking form through a series of luminous dissections of the porous surface, revealing a life source within.
The collection comprises six monolithic totems unique in height and formed around a piercing, spherical aperture that binds the collection. This negative space opens variously in each iteration, adding to the vessels’ enigmatic presence that glows radiantly when lit.
Crafted from Roman travertine sourced from Tivoli and produced in the renowned Italian marble region of Pietrasanta, each piece in this limited-edition series showcases intricate and innovative internal coring, demonstrating a synthesis of material innovation and natural stone machining on an impressive scale. The pitted and permeable formations of the stone’s structure are revealed through a unique angled cut aligning the patination of the stone, serving as a testament to its millions of years resonating within Earth’s core.

Ahu /
"OBJETS Inspired by the Magic of Istanbul"

Designers: Eda Akaltun &Mevce Ciraci
Website: https://www.ahustudio.com/
IG: @ahu.studio @eda.akaltun @mevce @mm.studio.mm

Design duo Ahu creates contemporary collectible furniture and objects inspired by the traditions and mysticism of Asia Minor. The newest pieces from their inaugural Modern Heirlooms collection, the sculptural solid wood and lacquer Tepsi objects—based on the symbolism of the evil eye (or Nazar in Turkish)—are designed to be celebratory pieces for any room.
Founded by longtime friends and Central Saint Martins alumni Eda Akaltun and Mevce Çıracı in September 2021, their respective backgrounds in visual arts and product design are tied together in their ability to refine culture and craftsmanship to create pieces that tell a story. Their work combines unique marbling paintings made by hand with contemporary, sophisticated design—inspired and informed by the art, craft, history, and mysticism of the diverse cultures that have inhabited Asia Minor and by ikram, the Turkish tradition of offering guests boundless hospitality.
During Alcova 2023, Ahu will be exhibiting a selection from their new range in a historic and intriguing setting. Their tactile objects will enter an active relationship with the context of the abandoned Porta Vittoria abattoir in which they will be immersed. The newly launching Tepsi objects series, born from the sculptural elements of their furniture, are a continuation of the Modern Heirlooms collection. In order to bridge beauty and function, segments of the pieces are formed by different masters and then assembled into one, conveying diverse knowledge and techniques of each artisan. They are conversation pieces, objects to behold, but at the same time made to be used in a convivial manner.

ALCOVA PROJECT SPACE ALCOVA PROJECT SPACE




Alcova Project Space is a new entity within Alcova. In this "exhibition within an exhibition,” we collect things that intrigue us – projects that capture our imagination or that touch us deeply in some way. Here we give vent to our curatorial instincts to piece together an image of what most resonates with us on the contemporary design scene, emerging or otherwise.

What do these pieces have in common? In some cases, it is a question of aesthetic language; in others, it is a certain resonance with the spirit of our times. For this first episode, we chose to investigate three thematic strands, each touching on distinct aspects of the present.

The first is Digital Ornamentalism. Informed by extremely heterogeneous visual influences, the works presented in this section strike us for an aesthetic language which seemingly attempts to transmute the digital obsession of recent years back into material form. It's as if the NFT boom suddenly found itself projected into the physical world and at the same time attempted to surpass it, transcending it while retaining its decorative signature. This is the case for Hannah Lim's pottery, even though her work originates from a research on ancient Asian craftsmanship; and it is even more literal for Ryan Decker’s lamps or Isabel Rower’s wooden stools, liberally tagged with illustrations.

In Augmented Nature, on the other hand, we bring together projects that embody a new outlook on the natural world. Projects that somehow are nature, in the shapes and materials they are composed of. When they include technology, it disappears into their organic folds, enveloped in organic textures and new natural resins. Here we find a lamp and a screen by Samer Selbak, both of which emerge from the fibers of a Palestinian pumpkin, and the sculptures and furnishings carved by Didi NG Wing Yin following the texture of the trees; we also find the lamps in by Estudio Rain moulded castor oil plant resin, and the epic forms of the dynamic furniture pieces by Eric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue, forerunners of a language that speaks through natural gestures and surprising movements.

The third is Afterparty. Afterparty embraces full-on the notion of life in the “extreme present,” taking the drumbeat of perpetual existential crises as the starting point of a search for a new idea of post-apocalyptic beauty. Instead of attempting to drown them out, these works embrace the signals of impending doom arriving from all quarters - from film to TV, from books to news to pop culture, from the air we cannot breathe to the rain that does not rain, conscious that we are all continually, collectively, exposed to a pounding message about the end of the world, and that it’s exhausting. From the virus-carpets by Stefania Ruggiero to the improbable contortions of La Gorgona by Stefano Fusani, from the burnt colors of Koos Breen to the brutalist and dystopian combinations of Attua Aparicio and Jochen Holz, the pieces in this part of the exhibition, consciously or not, seem to share a jarring sense of preoccupation with what comes “after”.

Alexandre Labruyère


Designer: Alexandre Labruyère
Website: http://alexandrelabruyere.com
IG: @alexandrelabruyere

A keen cyclist, Alexandre Labruyère has traveled to many places whose natural landscapes have left their mark on him, and now serve as inspiration for his creations.

His work revolves around three fundamental axes: tension, lightness and simplicity. These three notions guide the research, the experimentation, the creation and the manufacturing of all the products in Alexandre's catalog.
They also give a structure and a common base to each object imagined and created by him.
The search for a taut but fluid line guides the designer's work, which is enhanced by contrasting colors. Simplicity, in its most positive sense, gives the object a form of obviousness. Obviousness of function and use, of the perfect line, and feeling.
For the universe created here is imbued with a familiar poetry: we are not faced with objects that confuse or disturb us. They come rather to consolidate our interior world, and call upon a memory of timeless forms.

All furniture is made to order and made to measure. In line with its natural inspirations, all raw materials come from the Hauts-de-France and are used in a reasoned approach. Oak, ash and sycamore are carefully selected directly to the saw mill.

A-N-D

Aplat /
"Cena Colorata"

Designer: Aplat
Collaborators and other credits: Portrait : Maxime Dony / Drawings : Mathilde Boulley / Pictures : Adrien Eisenlohr
Website: http://aplatdesign.com/
IG: @a_p_l_a_t

At Aplat we manufacture well-designed products for your home, shaped by memories and references, thanks to simple pieces, warm and fine colors combined with exclusive expertise. Each product is designed to bring harmony and comfort in the room it inhabits. Aplat is a vocabulary of simple, elementary forms, a repertoire of infinite possibilities of combinations, layouts, approvals through drawing. In our studio located in Paris, we create collections that connect people with their interiors. We are attentive to the production, handmade in Italy, and the origin of the materials we use. We deliver to our customers high quality products with a familiar interior design, which draws its inspiration from Occidental culture.

Our new kitchen towels and tablecloth brings simple luxury from cooking in the kitchen to precious moments around the table. These elegant collections celebrate the timeless pleasures of bringing people together in a soft, delicately colored atmosphere. AP09 kitchen towel collections are a lush mix of colors in your kitchen. The various designs merge the traditional with the contemporary and allow you to mix and match the different colors and patterns to suit any mood and kitchen.

Art+Loom and Bea Pernia /
"The Art of Formation by Art+Loom and Bea Pernia"

Designer: Art+Loom and Bea Pernia
Website: http://artandloom.com , http://beainteriorsdesign.com
IG: @artandloom @beainteriorsdesign

Marking their debut at Milan Design Week, Art+Loom and Bea Pernia, two of Miami’s premier high-end design brands, have joined forces to present The Art of Formation. An exploration of the intersection between sculpture and function, the joint installation is inspired by a natural phenomenon mostly taken for granted: shaped by time, the elements and the very formation of our planet, rocks are the foundation upon which we stand; unique in structure, shape and evolution, the process creates often-overlooked beauty.

The Art of Formation seeks to remind visitors to marvel at the Earth’s primordial majesty, the ever-evolving process of geological formation, and the genesis of the Earth. Centered upon biophilia, this collaborative study by Art+Loom and Bea Pernia will feature pieces that evoke a sense of raw, untouched beauty. The Art of Formation is an ode to the beauty of the Earth’s foundation, showcasing organic shapes and patterns that reflect nature at its most primal and captivating.

ARTESANÍA DE CASTILLA - LA MANCHA /
"ARACHNE"

Desisgner: WORN STUDIO
Website: https://kikigoti.com/
IG: @kikigoti, @chelsielcraig (photographer), @mark_malecki (metal fabrication), @bigmess.co (press and sales), @maceobishop (video)

The Castilla-La Mancha Craft initiative is committed to exploring the synergies between tradition and design, facilitating innovative pieces to revitalize the sector. Natalia Ortega is an industrial designer based in Castilla-La Mancha, making objects, furniture, and lighting in the mediums ofclay, wood, stone, leather, and blown glass. Natalia reclaims the essence of making used in traditional craft from our past, working with artisans from small workshops in small towns—the slowness, the intention, the respect for natural resources, creating contemporary objects that bring awareness to our presence as well as to non-living things.

ARACHNE is a space for Crafts from Castilla-La Mancha and Design. Natalia Ortega is a designer characterized by the use of spheres in her spaces. True to her style, where she combines craftsmanship and tribal aspects, she takes us to a very special space, transferring us to a spider's web. Olive wood, marble, blown glass, wool, metal, ceramic are the materials that we will find in this unique space. A sophisticated, warm and 100% handmade space where ancestral techniques are combined with the most sophisticated design.

Arthur Vandergucht /
"Frans collection"

Designer: Arthur Vandergucht
Website: https://www.arthurvandergucht.com/
IG: @arthurvandergucht

Arthur Vandergucht is a young Belgian designer and craftsman, specialized in tig welding. He graduated from Luca School of Arts, Ghent with a BA in Interior Design in the year 2020. Here he discovered his passion for craftwork, his love for building structures and the processes of constructing, shaping, developing, and forming a particular object. He sought – and is still seeking – to push the boundaries for an efficient balance between architecture and building structures.

The design research focuses on developing, explaining and questioning design strategies from the overlapping field between design and architecture; a field that is made present by further examining connections and constructions. The objects are made of folded sheet metal compartments that are connected in a traditional way. The collection is characterized by pure, clear materials where the obvious and traditional connections play an essential role. The designs were formed by using repetitions, inversions and bends that are neither hidden nor obscured.

Atelier Areti /
"Reflection"

Designers: Guillane &Gwendolyn Kerschbaumer
Collaborators and other credits: OmniDecor | Set Design by Lidia Covello + Atelier Areti
Website: http://atelierareti.com
IG: @atelier_areti


The Alcova installation showcases Areti’s latest work Reflection and pieces from the Elements collection. Elements is the result of a specific design project with a strict framework, centered around the archetypical light consisting of a base, stem, and illuminating element. This rigorous brief allowed for an in depth exploration and innovation of specific elements within each light and extensive analysis of color concepts. After 3 years working within self imposed limits we were very ready to explore design outside these restraints. It was with a new joy and curiosity that we returned to working more freely with brass, silver, figurative shapes, and decorative elements. The work presented in Reflection is the result of this thought and design process. In the 2019 text Hormé, Areti outlined one of its central design concepts, that of heterogeneity of moods. Objects create specific moods and we believe that spaces are enriched by objects creating a multiplicity of auras. While each object and its aura must be carefully designed to be perfect in its own character, the combination of different such objects results in a deeper, more complex, and more engaging surrounding.

Atelier LUMA /
"Atelier LUMA : Bioregional Design Practices"

Collaborators and other credits: Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council, chaired by Her Highness Sheikha Jawaher bint Mohammed Al Qasimi, wife of His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, member of the UAE Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah.
Website: https://www.atelier-luma.org/en/
IG: @luma_arles

Objects and furnishings presented in this exhibition were created by combining locally available material and human resources. Atelier LUMA, a program of LUMA Arles, honed its approach through a firm anchoring in its own bioregion: Arles, the Camargue, the Alpilles, and the Crau. Its multidisciplinary teams continue to explore these rich surroundings while expanding their
work in Europe, the Mediterranean basin, and beyond.

Five large installations offer sensory experiences rooted in specific cultural and natural landscapes. Rice straw, salt, textiles, and wool provide glimpses into the bioregion surrounding Arles through sound, light, colors, motifs, and textures. Algae and agricultural byproducts take shape as bioplastic seating in the exhibition’s discussion space. Middle Eastern materials, including palm fronds, are used to reimagine a traditional sitting area, where fragrances evoke desert landscapes.

A series of cabinets displays materials and prototypes generated by bioregional explorations. From construction materials to upholstery fabrics, from plant-based shoes to molded palm sheath, the experimental objects resulted from careful investigation and extensive collaboration. Each one draws from local heritage and environmental surroundings, then reflects them back through appearance and form. Throughout the exhibition, artisanal and industrial techniques are combined to create new vernaculars.

In the United Arab Emirates, Atelier LUMA co-curates research with Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council (ICCC), chaired by Her Highness Sheikha Jawaher bint Mohammed Al Qasimi, wife of His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah. The research investigates the role indigenous crafts can play in designing and building the future of the UAE. ICCC operates a pioneering range of creative and cultural initiatives designed to foster a sustainable economy around the UAE’s heritage crafts, one of which is the Design Labs II initiative: a research fellowship with the American University of Sharjah’s College of Architecture, Art and Design. The result of this fellowship is a growing material library of recipes displayed within the cabinets of the exhibition.

Aurélien Veyrat /
"Post_"

Website: http://aurelienveyrat.com
IG: @aurelien_veyrat

Aurélien Veyrat wants to question the usual point of view and transforms basic elements into new pieces. Bricks are made of earth but they are industrially produced and nowadays they symbolize our society which has been driven continuously by money and productivity. Highlighting their subtle colors, their extensive textures, and their graphical qualities, Aurélien resets our vision: while looking at his columns or sculptures of repeated elements, we feel a confrontation between past and future, between low- and high-technology, between industry and craft. We can be moved by the beauty of these ruins while our world seems so troubled. Aurélien Veyrat will suggest a dialogue between his works and the Alcova area. Earth and lime colored units will be stacked creating an enigmatic built volume: strong and falsely regular while looking like a lace. Questioning the relation between decor and construction, we will also discover new scenes made of imaginary architectural backstages. His own sculpture waste inspires Aurélien Veyrat’s new shapes and new associations. He will also present a series of melted glass and bricks conveying mini-architectures. Other architectural fragments, supported by walls or supporting them, will evoke an industrial heritage needing a pause.

BARBINI SPECCHI VENEZIANI /
"BACK TO THE FUTURE"

Designers: BARBINI SPECCHI VENEZIANI, LUCIA MASSARI, BETHAN LAURA WOOD, VICTORIA WILMOTTE, RIO KOBAYASHI, LAURA SATTIN, ELENA TREVISAN
Collaborators and other credits: ARTEMIDE, GIANNI SEGUSO
Website: http://www.aavbarbini.it/
IG: @barbinispecchiveneziani

AAV BARBINI, owner of the Barbini Specchi Veneziani brand, is a creative and multi-functional lab that was founded on the island of Murano in 1927 by Nicolò Barbini. The company specializes in the art of engraving on glass and in the production and restoration of antique and modern Venetian mirrors.
It is the oldest mirror production company in business on Murano and is the amalgamation of three renowned glass factories: Artigianato Artistico Veneziano, Guglielmo Barbini, and Domus Vetri d’Arte. All of them are excellent and share a solid family tradition. Today the Barbinis aim to continue the family business in the wake of that tradition.

BASKETCLUB




Basketclub was founded in 2020 as an Instagram-based initiative by Jamie Wolfond and Adrianus Kundert. It plays by a simple set of rules: Each member of a selected, international group of designers weaves a new “basket” every month. A brief in the form of an emoji dictates the monthly theme of the baskets. At the end of the month, photographs of the finished baskets are shared on Instagram.

The works cover many approaches: technical, aesthetic, conceptual, playful, political or full of historical references, each designer approaching the theme from their own fascination and context. Now 3 years into the project we are pleased to showcase some of our best baskets made so far. We are also excited to release a new book which catalogs over 300 baskets designed for this project.

Bedont /
"Nel verde, dipinto di verde / In the green, painted green"

Designer: Bedont
Collaborators and other credits: Lorenz+Kaz
Website: https://www.bedont.com/
IG: @bedont_furniture @lorenzkaz

For a century Bedont has been making chairs and tables using one of the most noble materials—wood. At the beginning, it was an opportunity: using what their land offered them. In the Dolomites they were surrounded by ancient forests, and cutting down a tree meant allowing new ones to grow. Today this has become a choice that allows them on one side to pass on that common thread that bonds them to their roots, and on the other, to use a renewable material, the cultivation of which does not harm the planet , since it turns carbon dioxide into oxygen, namely life.
Bedont’s choice to usewood, a long-lasting material, reveals their aim to produce something that can be passed on from one generation to next, and they also apply this concept in the design of their products— they make timeless objects that are not subject to passing fads bound to die out in the time frame of a single season.
Timeless also means placeless: their products go beyond the commercial connotations of residential or public space. What is functional for its use can be placed in any project, be it a super metropolitan penthouse, an international airport, a company canteen, or a cozy suburban apartment.

BOI /
"Collection N°1"

Designer: Goran Sidjimovski
Sponsor: with the contribution of the General Consulate of the Federal Republic of Germany
Website: http://boi-knit.com
IG: @boi_knit

The presentation at Alcova 2023 is the official launch of the BOI brand.

Collection 01 is a capsule collection for home textiles and features eight products across the three categories of textile art, dining and living. Knits take the form of framed textiles, tapestry, table mat, coaster, table cloth, cushion cover, seat cushion and a blanket.

Additionally, knit as upholstery will be showcased through two furniture collaborations: a sofa by Milan-based interior designer Daniel Nikolovski, and a fold chair by Berlin-based woodworker Robin Norris.

By experimenting directly on the machine with the wide array of knitting techniques and yarns, different textile surfaces and samples come to live. The visual and tactile guide the product concept. The form and graphic as the last step in the process, are usually a reflection of the current mood of the designer. Collection 01 is all about the organic, fluid and non-linear.

The used materials are dead stock yarns, organic cotton, mulesing-free wool, FSC certified viscose and recycled polyester. The studio has a zero-waste policy. All products are knitted directly into shape with less than 1% waste. This waste, together with residual test samples, is upcycled as a filling material in a seat cushion.

MUT Design /
"BRUTO"



BRUTO was born with the idea of questioning what it means to be brutal.
An imaginary inhabited by raw and honest objects.
Bruto started in MUT Design’s family workshop as a way of experimenting with materials and construction methods with the idea of obtaining unconventional results and blurring the boundaries between art and design—stripped from any rules.
BRUTO is MUT design’s purest essence new brand, a brand that aims to be a home of collaborations with other like-minded creatives and friends

Product name :Chapa y Pintura chair / Materials: Recycled Steel
Product name :Entorchada Flowers Vases / Materials: Anodised aluminum
Product name :Analogic Vases / Materials: Glass

CAIA Leifsdotter Desig Studio /
"CAIA LEIFSTOTTER"



With a creative approach to design, Caia Leifsdotter combines functionality and aesthetic spaces with respect for the historical and architectural framework. The design studio works with Bespoke interior and sculptural design.

CAIA Leifsdotter exhibits her psychedelic mirrors combined with the series of multi-functional Silver Root bases. Alongside the modular sofa CAIA designs with her father for PH furniture. The combination of natural materials such as steel and wood and the addition of processed material such as resin is resulting in the distinctively shaped objects and furniture. For this project Caia have invited the architect Alexandra Madirazza with her sculptural mirrors and ceramic work.

Carlo Lorenzetti /
"Untitled"

Designer: Carlo Lorenzetti
Website: http://www.carlolorenzetti.com
IG: @c_zetti

Carlo Lorenzetti is a designer from Michigan, USA. He lives and works in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, where he fabricates projects in ceramics, metal and glass.

Carlo Lorenzetti presents a selection of functional stoneware objects for domestic and public space.

Cengiz Hartmann /
"Human spirit and material reach out their hands to each other"

Designer: Cengiz Hartmann
Website: http://cengizhartmann.de
IG: @cengizhartmann

Under the title 'human spirit and material reach out their hands to each other', Cengiz Hartmann shows a handful of significant items that enable to dive into his poetic body of work.
1. By sculpting vases - one of the most ancient topics of sculpting - with three legs, High Vases become real entities.
2. Becoming Human (ASK &EMBLA ) is made of ash and elm wood. Both trees were splitted by hand, hollowed and stitched together. In the northern mythology the first two human were trees, called Ask and Embla.
3. By questioning the cultural behaviour of each having an own single plate, Giant Plates are an invitation to celebrate and share dinner. To initiate relations between people, food and objects is essential for the pieces. Crafted for an experimental diner by Steinbeisser with Jeong Kwan.
4. While refering to the ancient myth, Narcissus deals with current topics. By transforming and combining original materials - water, earth, fire - the inexpressible becomes visible.

CHEF DECO /
"Objects with a hidden agenda"

Designers: Cora Hamilton and Emilie Florin
Collaborators and other credits: Ola Hansson, Caspar Hamilton, Jo Andersson, Sthlm Glas, Hitex, Stockholms tapetserarverkstad
IG: @chef.deco | @corahamilton | @florin.emilie

The inspiration behind the brand and collection started with the idea of making beautiful objects and add-ons for homes. Camouflaged at first sight with a hidden agenda, as a collaboration between beauty and function. Objects that also could be used for other purposes, like a yin yoga carpet or a meditation cushion. The collection is made of high quality materials, and consists of tufted carpets in 100 procent wool, hand-blown glass kettlebells, work out boxes and stretching sticks in Swedish Masur Birch wood and steel. - Our design philosophy is to create objects that doesn’t need to be stuffed away or hidden.

CIAM /
"UNDER GRUND CIRCLE"

Designer: FABRIZIO MILESI
Website: https://ciamweb.it/en/
IG: @ciam_spa | @fabriziomilesi


Circle, Ciam's new system of refrigerated pozzetti gelato, flows through the space of Alcova's Basement like a thin, suspended black tongue. "The performance breaks the dark and rough underground atmosphere, immersing visitors in a space that makes the senses protagonists through the fusion of circular, redundant and infinite sounds, punctuated by dynamic lights and fragrances that evoke sunshine, freshness, and ice cream." The experience of a design that plays on the contrasts of an inverse logic: on/off, light/dark, sound/silence.

Cielo Studio


Designer: Maria FFFernada
Collaborators and other credits: Andrea Sibaja, Mario Jinesta, Priscilla Fallas
Sponsor: Private collector
IG: @cielo___studio

Cielo Studio is a design experimental project with the intention of creating objects from emotions. Each piece is designed and thought in order to be recognized by Cielo Studio’s friends and collectors. By recognizing shapes and designs they can create an emotional association with the objects. During the process of making each of these pieces we look forward to find the accurate proportion of the curves to achieve pleasant and comfortable shapes to the view but at the same time keep the utility. The manufacturing process is slow, which is a very important premise in order to be able to design as an act of existence, with patience to calmly discover the potential of the materials (metals, glass and acrylic) used to make domestic objects and installations The visual section is an important hub of the project, the images are also part and result of the creative process, as well as the beginning of the emotional bond between collectors and objects; the means of communication is used as a space to carry out explorations at a photographic level.

Claudia Girbau

Company_Slalom /
"OF THE ORIGIN"

Designers: Isabella Del Grandi
Website: https://www.slalom-it.com/
IG: @slalomacoustic | @isabelladelgrandi

Slalom is a young Italian company producing sound-absorbing products, able to guarantee a safe acoustic comfort together with a unique design of its kind. The peculiar characteristic of Slalom is the sustainable approach to the project, from the choice of raw materials, recycled and recyclable, to the production and management process with reduced environmental impact. The passion for design and quality has given life to a range of dynamic and lively tailor-made products that arise from the concept of “acousthetics,” the synergy between acoustics, ethics and aesthetics, favoring the creation of comfortable spaces. The wide selection of proposed materials and attention to detail comes to life from the careful choice of quality raw materials, traceable and with a high recycled content, part of a circular design that constantly invests in functionality, durability and recycling. Each fabric, felt and color are chosen in such a way as to communicate an attitude and an emotion such as to stimulate all the senses, creating intense atmospheres. // Isabella Del Grandi is a multifaceted architect and designer. Formed between Milan and Rotterdam, after years of professional experience in the Netherlands she returns to Milan where she works in architecture, interior design and set design. Here she meets Slalom, that she joins as creative director. Her professional approach aims at the construction of articulated and solid narratives for every project, moving in-between scales and across disciplines with a deep attention to design in the interaction with human practices and circular materiality.

Cor Unum /
"Legends &Legacy"



The title “Legends &Legacy” is dedicated to the makers and artists Cor Unum has been working with in the past but is also an invitation for future designers to join its community. The plate collection series illustrates its legacy. The series From Alessandro Mendini to Maarten Baas and from Gijs Bakker to Atelier Fiq. proves Cor Unum is alive and kicking also at 70, and so is its plate collection which will continue to grow.

crafting plastics! studio &DumoLab Research /
"SENSBIOM II"

Designers: crafting plastics! studio &DumoLab Research
Collaborators and others: Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, University Research Foundation at Penn
Website: http://craftingplastics.com
IG: @crafting_plastics @dumoLab

SENSBIOM II by crafting plastics! &DumoLab At the new Alcova venue within the Rimessa building, crafting plastics! studio and DumoLab Research will present the latest in their ongoing multidisciplinary research collaboration on interactive biomaterials. SENSBIOM III is a playful installation of dozens of biopolymer lattices able to signal real-time changes in Milan’s solar radiation to make visitors aware of invisible threats. It proposes a future in which matter helps us reconnect with the planet using environmentally-active and eco-friendly materials derived from renewable resources.

Daniele Giannetti

De Marchi Verona S.R.L. /
"De Marchi Verona"

Designers: Giacomo Totti
Collaborators and others: Marta Martino, Giacomo Totti, Stefania Borriero, Hanen Trabelsi
Website: https://demarchiverona.it/
IG: @giacomototti | @martamartino_off
@demarchi_verona

The richness of porcelain translates into three-dimensional surfaces with an extraordinary variety of colors and textures, evoking inspirations ranging from classic art and pre-Columbian mythology to art deco and 1950s punk fashion references.
Four collections elevate this ancient, valuable material by combining large geometric modules and small irregular elements to create claddings for indoor and outdoor spaces.
Maya (designed by Giacomo Totti) is inspired by the architectural styles and ancestral symbols of South American civilizations, playing with natural allusions to heaven and earth.
Cross (designed by Marta Martino) elaborates on the diamond ashlar, an essential element of Renaissance architecture. Repeated and emphasized, it surprises with its expressive power.
Arena (designed by Giacomo Totti) encapsulates the company’s Veronese soul, interpreted with lines reminiscent of classicism and metaphysical spaces.
Calipso (designed by Giacomo Totti) is a tribute to the beauty of the mythological goddess of the sea, echoing rippling waves with diagonal modules that enhance the surface’s texture.

ECART INTERNATIONAL /
"TRACE"

Designer: ECART INTERNATIONAL
Website: https://www.ecart.paris/fr/
IG: @ecart.international

This year, the publishing house has taken over a space within the Alcova platform, which brings together designers and companies that reflect on the future of living and manufacturing. For this show, its new products will be displayed in their cases, dressed in the famous blue that Andrée Putman loved. Visitors will find, among others, Ecart International’s Elephant armchair, its 1929 deckchair, and its metal desk by Jean-Michel Frank and Adolphe Chanaux. Visitors will also discover the Reiko screen and the Wolf bridge by Laurent Maugoust and Cécile Chenais. Today, the future of noble materials lies in the finishing of increasingly natural materials. In its Argentat factory, it strives to develop—on a daily basis with its customers—French wood finishes with a minimum of petrochemicals. Visitors can expect to see some of these finishes on some of the pieces exhibited at Alcova.

Elisa Uberti /
"Primitive Island"

Designer: Elisa Uberti
Website: https://www.elisauberti.com/
IG: @elisauberti | @studio.b.helle | @studio__muts

A parenthesis in Africa, the warm colors of earth, sand, skin, fruit... A beneficial solar energy and a simple way of life make everything beautiful. The red earth of the mountains and the shimmering green of the plants fill the mind with an energizing sweetness. The calm and gentle lagoons contrast with the sea urchins that inhabit them in numbers and give another shade, another perspective to the landscape. The mangroves seem to walk on water and paint a dreamlike picture. Influenced by my trip, I wanted to transcribe this primitive tenderness in ginger bread and white stoneware lamps, sometimes adorned with a piece of sun, which cut out the overall landscape of the exhibition. I also present large white wicker lamps, created with the help of a basket maker. Some of the shapes seem to point to the sky and want to touch the sun. Naïve, enveloping volumes, and the association within the same exhibition of two natural materials, earth and wicker, which allow me to re-transcribe my chromatic and sensitive vision of this travel.

Erco Lai

FABIAN FREYTAG STUDIO /
"BAR FOURAGE"

Deisnger: Fabian Freytag
Website: http://www.fabianfreytag.com/
IG: @fabianfreytag

The installation BAR FOURAGE is an attempt at creating a parallel world. Since the founding of the studio, Fabian Freytag has been preoccupied with living spaces of indulgence and the question: What happened to the house bar? This is to be understood more as a social question. Living space is becoming scarcer, at the same time more and more important and the demands are higher. A contradiction! On display is furniture that refers to past epochs: On the one hand, newly interpreted and on the other, reissued. In the last year, his work has been strongly concerned with existing furniture and its repurposing, supplementation and expansion. It is research into the application in the studio and the sensitive use of resources. It is about the question of respect for the quality of things that have already been made and the continuation of these in new forms. The last few years have shown that we need retreats that are introverted, analogue, and positive. Our goal is to create spaces as collages that bring the user one thing: a good time!

FABSCARTE Unique Italian Wallcovering /
"Moonlight Tales"

Designer: FABSCARTE
Design in collaboration with Martyn Thompson
Installation Production in collaboration with FèM Laboratorio Creativo
Website: http://fabscarte.it
IG: @fabscarte

Fabscarte presents the projects “Moonlight Tales” in collaboration with the world-known designer Martyn Thompson. Stardust Sunset new wallcovering, and the already known MidNight Moon Dust, tell stories about the Moon and its glares. Stardust Sunset, thorough material stratifications, evokes the Moon’s surface, its romantic colors perceived from the Earth in red and bronze tones; a celebration of the Moon, of its dawn and its moving sunsets. Colors and light reflections echo the atmospheric lunar glares and take the viewer to an immersive and surreal space. Lunar atmospheres glorified by the wall lamps, where the precious wallpaper receives light from the back and creates scenographic light effects. All Fabscarte’s artworks are hand-made in Italy.

Forma Rosa Studio /
"Natura Oscura (Dark Nature)"

Designers: Maria Teresa Castillo Irribarren, Santiago Braby Brown
Website: http://www.formarosastudio.com/
IG: @formarosastudio

Against the backdrop of a post-pandemic world where we have become increasingly isolated from nature and each other, our new solo art show “Dark Nature” proposes a collection of sculptural formations inspired by natural phenomena, such as a fractal growth called “Botryoidal” that inspires our Botryoidal Lamps. From lighting design to seating and mirror designs, each piece adopts different functions and scales. Using a combination of digital growth through coding and experimental handcraft, we have created pieces that are intimately connected with us, nature, and space. The final forms invite us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world and to explore new ways of interacting with it. The installation of “Dark Nature” offers an immersive experience that invites viewers to interact with and coexist within a new ecosystem. Elements of man-made infrastructure are juxtaposed with nature’s greenery growth, creating, and reimagining our relationship with the world around us.

GENERAL STORE

GRÔPK /
"zemia"

Designer: Marcin Kuberna
Website: http://www.gropk.com
IG: @gropk.ceramics

Drawing on the earliest methods of shaping clay, the work explores archaic paradigms of beauty and strength. Bearing the name “Zemia,” which means “earth” in Kashubian, it is a nod to the primordial imagery of this element. Referencing these archetypes, the vessels are an expression of gratitude to his parents for their manual labor and respect for the earth. Exploring ambiguous forms, the vessels almost look as if they themselves have sprung from the earth. It is an ode to the eternally powerful, life-giving, nurturing forces of nature.

Heim+Viladrich / Laurids Gallée / Forever Studio /
"By The Seaside"



Heim+Viladrich, Laurids Gallée and Forever studio are three design studios based in Montpellier (FR) and Rotterdam (NL). Through their practices, they focus on the creation of unique furniture pieces, temporary installations and spatial designs.

For this year's edition of Alcova, Heim+Viladrich, Laurids Gallée and Forever Studio are developing together an installation on the theme 'By The Seaside'. Gathering new and existing works, the three studios will deconstruct the various elements of the European seaside and re-assemble them into an imaginary landscape. Lounge chair, cocktail table, sunscreen and beach towels will be among the various objects and props composing this atypical scenery.

HIDDE /
"The Darklight Collection"

Designer: NOVONO with main designer Nora von Nordenskjöld
Artist: Elisabeth Ehmann
Photographer: Marko Mihaljevic
Stylist: Studio Sedam
Branding agency: Bruketa, Zinic &Grey
IG: @hidde_furniture
Website: https://hidde.hr/

THE DARKLIGHT COLLECTION: BRINGING FUNCTIONAL ART INTO YOUR SPACE

By mixing noble materials, purity of lines and essential functions of the everyday lifestyle, the HIDDE Collection makes room for the ultimate sophistication: simplicity.

First HIDDE Collection, The Darklight collection, is collaboration between art and design; craftsmanship and technology, tradition and innovation.

Together with a team of exceptionally skilled artisans, HIDDE brings each piece to life with a passion for beauty that is evident in even the smallest details. While creating the Darklight collection, a huge effort and extra time has been invested in creating exquisite details that will make the brand HIDDE stand out. Outstanding artistry and impeccable work are at the heart of what HIDDE does.
Therefore, each piece of the HIDDE collection comes in numbered editions, equally like artworks and state-of-the-art design, and each piece is named after the number of people who worked on that very piece.
Delivered by the honest hands of our remarkable manufacturers, some pieces of furniture come with a hidden element waiting to be discovered.

The Darklight Collection is marked by the pairing of contrasting textures and feels, precious objects inspired by the brutalist aesthetic, designs that stand out for their astonishing palette of materials and timeless shapes. Quality is never sacrificed and impeccable skill is always executed. After all, HIDDE furniture pieces are meant to last.

Hungarian Fashion &Design Agency /
"Budapest Select"

Designers: Ádám Csanád Berkes, Anikó Rácz x Timbart, Annabella Hevesi, annakatalin, Atelier Kas, Bernadett Hegyvári Carcassné, Bettina Bessenyei x Gránit és Márvány, Bori Segesdi, Co &Co Designcommunication x Multifelt Factory, Dávid Godzsák, DBE.FURNITURE, DEGA design, Demeter Fogarasi, esstre, Fanni Hegedűs, HORA, Judit Grünfelder, Julia Nema, Kyra László, M Kovács, MALVINA, Márton Sápi, Meander, NORNA, Organic Porcelain Manufactura, PAPER UP!, Petra Szondi, POSITION Collective, Róbert Szél, Sainstan, sarakele studio, Teo Studio, Tünde Ruzicska ceramics, VPI x Fruzsina Fülöp, Zsuzsa Formanek, Zsuzsanna Deák Design
Zsuzsanna Sinkovits
Website: http://hfda.hu/
IG: @hfdagency

Budapest Select, the umbrella brand that brings together the very finest of Hungarian design, presents a major exhibition project commissioned by the Hungarian Fashion &Design Agency and curated by the designer Gáspár Bonta. The exhibition intends to provide a cross-section of contemporary design in Hungary, a country that is positioning itself among the most interesting in the international creative scenario. Thirty-seven designers whose collections tell stories from afar, in which tradition plays a key role in the production process, one characterized by significant traces of craftsmanship, contamination with art, and a marked sense of belonging to both a territory and a community. Budapest Select showcases poetic yet familiar design, far removed from the logic of mass production. It does not wish to forget its roots, but rather reinterprets them through an approach with a strong experimental imprint, coupled with technology and highly expressive innovation. Tradition emerges from its static nature to become an abstract and dynamic tool with which to reinterpret the present.

IED | ISTITUTO EUROPEO DI DESIGN /
"ECOCENTRICO"

Designers: Studenti IED di Italia, Spagna e Brasile
Website: https://www.ied.it/
IG: @ied_official

“Ecocentrico” is a multidisciplinary project developed in partnership with Giacimenti Urbani. The project involves lecturers and students from different courses and from all IED Group campuses in Italy, Spain, and Brazil. “Ecocentrico” is an informative space intended to host visual, sound, and material labs and workshops run by the students: a large geodesic yurt hosts visual installations, the contents of which may be photographic, audio, video, and multimedia, while a second yurt will be built over the course of the week during workshops open to the public. The result of their experiences is an invitation to reflect on the changing urban landscape and the historical memory of places. Indeed, “Ecocentrico” expresses the IED Group's commitment to raising awareness on the issues of virtuous recovery and thus of urban and social regeneration, combined with the educational objective of stressing how design, understood as planning, is a tool for thinking up new relationships with the constituent materials of the urban fabric. As a partner, Giacimenti Urbani provides the recovered materials used by the students to build the exhibition project. Furthermore a small exhibition is the result of the “Studi visuali urbani” (Urban Visual Studies) workshop during the months leading up to Milan Design Week 2023.

j.o.b /
"Oggetti inquieti"

Designer: Jonathan Bocca
Website: https://www.job-jonathanbocca.com/
IG: @jonathanbocca

The works are a part of a larger project that Bocca has been carrying out in recent years, the central goal of which is to recreate everyday objects through a substance called “paper pulp,” obtained by mixing recycled paper, sand, and glue. The choice of paper as the starting material is linked to the origins of the artist: Lucca is one of the cities with the largest number of paper mills in the world. The artist therefore reflects on the conscious and ecological consumption of the materials used to produce design objects.

Jiri Krejcirik &Futuro /
"The Altar of Craft"

Designer: Jiri Krejcirik
Collaborators and others: Futuro
Website: https://futurostudio.cz/
IG: @jiri_krejcirik | @futurostudio.cz

The award-winning designer Jiri Krejcirik has partnered up with the Czech artisanal brand Futuro, introducing a new furniture collection, which presents a unique fusion of craftsmanship and a bold sculptural approach that is typical of Krejcirik’s aesthetics. From commodes to shelving units, the Roots collection includes a range of furniture solitaires. Its characteristic features are delicate joinery details and unusual woods, as well as the synthesis of traditional and progressive artisanal technologies. Besides the Roots collection, this installation also presents a unique collectors cabinet—an essence of Krejcirik’s artistic approach. “This cabinet altar encapsulates the childhood memory of my mother’s dresser. This memory inspired me to design a furniture memento. Its heart lies in the drawer unit, consisting of fifteen drawers upholstered in velvet. It is an intimate space for storing personal valuables,” comments Krejcirik.

Kate Greenberg /
"Tempo"

Desinger: Kate Greenberg
Collaborators and others: Soundtrack — Phoebé Guillemot aka RAMZi
Sponsor: Sound — will update by March
Website: https://kategreenberg.studio/
IG: @kate.hands.co

In “Tempo,” Kate Greenberg invites visitors to experience a near-future mode of living, as it reflects on our connection to the Earth’s diurnal rhythms through a series of design objects, including lighting, seating, and sound. The furniture and lighting pieces reinterpret home apparati, simulating the movement of the sky, the passage of time, and the sensation of warmth. Though wholly functional, each work presents a utility that is neither expected nor explicit. Felled Sky, crafted in aluminum and glass, is suspended overhead like an artificial sky and moves through a subtle progression of hues, from dusk to dawn. Radiator, a wall-hugging apparatus, emits a red atmospheric light, permeating the room with warmth despite its mechanical design. A bespoke sound piece by Phoebé Guillemot (aka RAMZi) envelops the space, weaving through lush samples of nature over a symbolic span of 12 hours. Greenberg fabricates the Milk Bench in materials that negotiate with surrounding soundwaves: aluminum as an accelerator, latex as a dampener. A reflective pool lies in the center, inverting the environment and responding visually to the frequencies. Visitors are reminded of the subjectivity of their embodied experiences, the interrelation among objects, and the essentiality of the Earth in keeping time.

Kejun Li /
"One tile and its thousand possibilities"

Designer: Kejun Li
IG: @kejunli_

Kejun doesn’t like to be called an artist or a designer. He doesn’t like boundaries and he wants to blend them. Synesthesia always bothers him, but it’s where the source of creation comes from. Realizing an idea requires an engineer's mind. Not an easy task.

This project tries to bring DESIGN + PLAY to ordinary daily stuff—a tile. Inspired by the tile-based game- Tantrix, a single tile has been developed. The single tile has its fixed shape and energy, but once many tiles are put together, its original shape vanishes, and instead countless visual effects are generated. The project aims at stimulating an interactive experience. The final effects are completely self-exploring.

Kiki Goti /
"NEO-VANITY"

Designer: Kiki Goti
Collaborators and others: Fabricated by Mark Malecki. Photos by Chelsie Craig. Press by BIGMESS.
Website: https://kikigoti.com/
IG: @kikigoti

Historically, there are only a few elements of domestic architecture that have revealed more about human leisure, popular culture, and evolving social customs than the vanity table or a dressing room. While few could afford them, they have provided a home within the home to celebrate beauty, autonomy, and eroticism. Today, Kiki Goti, alters our perception of “Neo-Vanity” to share a new transitional and dressing space that expresses exuberance and a Neo-futuristic environment for all to enjoy within the home––especially for those who perhaps enjoy the process of “getting ready” just as much as the large event itself. Simultaneously, Goti’s collection investigates a new, playful design language to perfectly balance utility with the feminine. She personifies her pieces––a pendant light, side table, modular mirror, and the main protagonist, a standing vanity–– as subjects to be dressed and accessorized. Upon aluminum forms, which are fabricated by New York-based metalworker Mark Malecki, Goti applies her signature hand-painted foam pieces to dress and drape them. Thereafter, Goti imbues the foam segments with hand-painted Balkan motifs derived from folkloric textiles in celebration of her Greek heritage.

LASHUP | Concept Design Studio /
"Moments"

Designer: Claudio Granato, Enrico Pieraccioli
Website: http://www.lashup.net
IG: @wearelashup

Moments is a project by LASHUP | Concept Design Studio based on the idea that an armchair may provide a contemporary experience. The creation of this object starts out from visual experimentation carried out through an artificial intelligence programme. The design process is entrusted to the inclusion of certain keywords such as mind, body, narrative, relationship and feel, which constitute the core of the studio’s research, and which together, generate layouts that cannot always be fully pinned down. LASHUP is carrying out a project called @extempore.jpg: an archive of extemporaneous visions brought together in an Instagram profile, where they convey images created with artificial intelligence, treated here as a mere studio research tool. Moments is an installation that represents a liminal space acting as a filter between the analogical and digital worlds. The perception of this armchair is not that of a piece of furniture, but leads us to consider it as a resting place, as if recalling an archetypal refuge in which shelter may be offered by a material reminiscent of spacesuits just as much as the carefree feel of a balloon. In a historical context dominated by the inability to plan even an imminent future, Moments offers that pause for decompression, provided amidst the tension of everyday balances.

Laura Mrksa /
"I Would Prefer Not To"

Designer: Laura Mrksa
Website: https://lauramrksa.com/
IG: @zlaura_____

Laura Mrksa (Croatia, 1992) is a slow designer in a fast-paced world, working from Amsterdam. Having a background in industrial design and living the reality of a curious observer, her designs play with subtle critique and irony. Objects that appear archetypal might provoke unusual interactions: a shelf that bends under the weight of one’s possessions, a bench with slipping legs, or a dancing water container. In her current work, Laura is experimenting with a manual technique of net-making that defies efficiency and overproduction.

I Would Prefer Not To plays with the role of productivity and progress in the attention economy. We are told that our worth is tied to how much we can produce and how efficiently we can use our time. Yet, in the age of the attention economy, our time is often co-opted by the very technologies we rely on to be productive. I Would Prefer Not To provides space for exploration of this theme in the form of a daybed made of a metal frame and hand-woven net. In a world where instant gratification is often the norm, the slow and deliberate process of weaving serves as a reminder to slow down and appreciate the journey. The weaving process of the net does not follow any predetermined patterns, valuing intuition over efficiency. I Would Prefer Not To encourages users to lie down and cover themselves. The act of covering oneself in the daybed creates a cocoon-like environment that offers a sense of security and privacy, allowing us to rest, think and procrastinate. This kind of attention could shift our focus from external metrics to the internal growth that comes from wilful thought and action.

Laura Niubó /
"Espressionismo Floreale"

Designer: Laura Niubó
Collaborators and others: Installation collaboration by Nueve, interior design architecture studio.
Website: http://www.lauraniubo.com
IG: @senorita_niubo

Spanish artist-designer Laura Niubó has built a robust practice centered around the emotional power of color. She places emphasis on creating immersive, colorful worlds that encourage people to explore their relationships to themselves, others, and their environments. Based in Los Angeles, she operates as a creative director and commissioned artist. Her projects range from film, photography, branding, experiential, and global campaigns for some of the world’s most transformational brands - Apple, Google, Instagram, Louis Vuitton, Airbnb, Netflix. She has made commissioned artwork for Google and Figma. Niubó has exhibited in galleries in New York, London, Colombia, Barcelona, Mallorca, L.A. and Miami.

Espressionismo Floreale is a collection of artworks and objects by artist-designer Laura Niubó. Consisting on a series of rugs, fine art prints and a selection of flora inspired lamps/NFTs. Espressionismo Floreale is about the rebirth of life through flowers. Using colors and geometric shapes, each artwork captures one natural reproductive part of a flower in its most abstract form. The design of each artwork is a study of color and form that generates a sensation of a sinuous, elegant and forceful movement as these flowers own by nature. As a result, a powerful color expression elevates the viewer's imagination to a world in which color floods everything bringing an uplifting energy and perception. At Alcova 2023, Niubó will present one of the six rugs, Leaf. Woven from a luxurious blend of New Zealand wool and vegan silk the rugs are made using natural and sustainable processes and materials. Leaf and its immersive colorful textile installation will honor this abstract interpretation of nature, flora and its rebirth. Color has been the north star and signature of differentiation behind the work of Laura Niubó through her professional and art career. Along with fine art and design, Laura creates an evolving selection of artworks and art objects bringing energy to impact how we feel in, and interact with, the spaces around us.

LES EAUX PRIMORDIALES by DWA /
"EXPÉRIENCES IMMOBILES"

Designers: Frederik De Wachter &Alberto Artesani
Collaborators and others: Finmark SARL, Flair, Tania &Vincent , Hoda Roche Communication
Sponsor: RADICI
Website: http://www.leseauxprimordiales.com/
IG: @leseauxprimordiales | @dwa_design_studio | @finmarksrl | @flair.paris | @arnaudpoulainlep | @taniaetvincent

Arnaud Poulain founded Les Eaux Primordiales in 2015. Inspired by the industrial heritage of Northern France, science and art in all their forms, he initially focused his creativity on perfume and his extraordinary compositions. Incredible raw materials, passion and high precision mechanics built the success of his olfactory designs. Today, the perfume factory has expanded and is now located in a majestic estate covering 14 hectares. A design studio producing scented decorative objects and designer furniture completes this universe that pays tribute to French luxury craftsmanship.

Les Eaux Primordiales, in partnership with DWA Design Studio, presents its Expériences Immobiles. It welcomes visitors in a timeless location enhanced by two laboratory towers designed by DWA Design Studio and inspired by the aesthetics of industrial buildings in Northern France. Their geometric shape is reminiscent of the factory chimneys once in use which the creator of Les Eaux Primordiales, Arnaud Poulain, would admire as a child. The wooden structure is placed on a carpet featuring the microcosmic visuals of Tania and Vincent, two Parisian photographers who conceived the visual identity of Les Eaux Primordiales. This installation will give visitors a unique sensory experience. The first tower appears as a labyrinth of stills where all the essences that make up the latest perfume of Les Eaux Primordiales unfurl: Cèdre SUPERFLUIDE. The other tower, composed of glass bulbs and mechanical fans, places the visitor in the center of a unique olfactory device that contains kurinuki sculptures created by Natascia Fenoglio and infused with perfume through a process similar to sublimation. (*Kurinuki is a traditional Japanese craft technique. Its immediate meaning is “carving,” in particular using a block of solid clay cut to create an “interior space.”)

Leolux x Studio Truly Truly /
"Leolux presents Rhythms"

Designers: Leolux x Studio Truly Truly
Collaborators and others: Studio Pepe, Bram Vanderbeke, Daniel de Bruin, Studio Truly Truly, Leolux
IG: @leoluxdesignfurniture @studiotrulytruly @studiopepe_official @daniel_de_bruin @bramvanderbeke

The story of Leolux began in Venlo, the Netherlands, in 1934. Now, almost 90 years later, the company is still based there, but has grown from a small-scale furniture factory to an international design brand. Since 2020, Kate and Joel Booy of Studio Truly Truly have been working with Leolux as art directors. At Alcova, they jointly present the project “Rhythms,” an ode to the intimate connection between design, craftsmanship, and functional art.

On the eve of its 90th anniversary, Leolux presents “Rhythms.” An installation that brings together Dutch heritage and entrepreneurship with international contemporary design. Studio Truly Truly, as art directors associated with the brand, designed an imposing breathing ceiling that spreads the pleasant scent of freshly baked Dutch delicacies. The mechanics of the installation are a work of artist Daniël de Bruin. He created the rhythmic movement of six textile volumes, revealing two impressive new products with each “breath.” A new sofa by Milanese designers Studiopepe and an aluminum table by Belgian artist Bram Vanderbeke.

Lexavala, The Good Living &Co /
"Comune - Objects in motion"

Designers: Jakub Szkaradek, Monika Szyca Thomas
Website: https://thegoodliving.co/ https://lexavala.com/
IG: @lexavala @thegoodliving.co

Lexavala—In 2018 the industrial lighting found its way to modern Polish housing. Jakub Szkaradek merged a workplace lamp with the expectations of today's designers. All models are made by hand in a workshop in Nowy Sącz. Lexavala's goal is to provide everyday lighting that will stay in our memory and make moments more special.

Lexavala and The Good Living Co—two Polish brands that have been effective on the Polish market for several years, and for some time coming from various initiatives and projects. In our fantasies, we break down the petrified form of exhibiting applied art. We get it out of the rigid gallery space and pull it into the urban tissue. We would like the project to develop organically, focusing more on the exchange of ideas, activating and inspiring designers and lovers of good design than sales.

LINACHI /
"LINOLEUM"

Designer: LINACHI
Collaborators and others: Forbo Flooring System for material support and Forbo Coral for technical support
Sponsor: Forbo Flooring System for material support and Forbo Coral for technical support
Website: http://linachi.com
IG: @ljnachj @forboflooringsystem @designacademyeindhoven

Lina Chi is a designer working experimentally across product and space design through a hands-on approach. She finds curiosity in daily objects which she seeks to renew in contemporary settings. Her research is often translated into objects that carry a technique and a narrative derived from industry experimentation.

We’ve walked on it in schools, hospitals, airports and flats: linoleum. The recipe for it, entirely renewable resources, hasn’t changed in over a hundred years. With this project, Lina Chi invites us to examine a familiar material by reintroducing the use of linoleum, but this time not as flooring.Through folding and cutting, Lina transforms sheets of linoleum into structurally sound stools, benches and tables, without using adhesives or permanent bindings. The material can easily be reshaped and recycled. Allowing it to curl, fall, bend, and move in its own distinctive way, Lina works from the essence of the material rather than towards the idealization of its properties.

Lindsey Adelman Studio /
"Soft Opening"

Designer: Lindsey Adelman
Website: http://www.lindseyadelman.com/
IG: @lindseyadelman

American lighting designer Lindsey Adelman has long been obsessed with illumination in all its forms. Her work treads the porous border between sculpture and design, taking inspiration from such diverse sources as Eva Hesse’s rope sculptures, the pattern, colors, and bodily ornamentation of the Maasai, as well as the films of David Lynch. Combining organic, handwrought materials like blown glass with the strong industrial beauty of machine-milled components, her lighting systems create radiant warmth while underscoring the drama of shadows and emptiness. Her Studio in New York City, founded in 2006, designs prototypes and builds in-house, working with a close circle of local manufacturers to develop and produce custom parts.

In Soft Opening, Lindsey Adelman will unveil the first works from LaLAB, her new platform for experimental work without agenda; a studio within the studio to further her artistic practice and push boundaries. Soft Opening is about shedding the hardness of that which is fixed and determined, and having the courage to reveal the soft parts that are continuously being worked out in the liminal space between concrete resolution and fantastical experimentation. In this space, three new series of illuminated works–Mobiles, Cages, and Rock Lights–will come together to create a celestial atmosphere set against a dark, otherworldly backdrop. The Mobiles–sculptural light works made up of various hanging elements based on principles of equilibrium–will hang throughout the room. Process-driven works that came together fluidly, they are at once physically settled but also perpetually moving, embodying constant transformation. Interspersed, the Cages, with their exacting angular frames, appear precise, strong, and fixed, yet brim with a visual vibration that emanates a frequency of sorts. Rock Lights—small, anthropomorphic, one-of-a-kind table lights made of hand-blown glass drooped over different minerals—will dot the floor. Taken all together, these works realize an energetic realm of opportunity and experimentation in which Adelman lets the fantasy work come out.

Madam Bozarjiants by DesignBureau /
"ორეოლი ✦ Halation"

Designers: Tinatin Egiashvili, Nia Mgaloblishvili, Nutsa Museridze, Ia Liparteliani, Sophio Shevardnadze, Tamar Oniani
Sponsor: DesignBureau
Website: http://designbureau.com/
IG: @madambozarjiants @designbureau_studio

Studio DesignBureau Marks its 10th anniversary and host Exhibition at Milan Design Week 2023, Alcova Milano with a unique design installation. Studio is launching a new product design platform under the name Madam Bozarjiants. During Milan Design Week, Madam Bozarjiants will be showcasing an installation that explores the natural light falling from the skylight of a historical building owned by the Bozarjiants family. The house was built in the early 20th century in the Art Nouveau style. However, during the Soviet repression, it was taken away from the owners and transformed into a communal living space.

Our collection is inspired by the beauty of skylights and the natural light they bring into a space. The dominant color of the collection is blue, representing the sky that we see through the skylight. Blue is the main color used throughout the collection, imitating the sky. Our collection includes three main products: a rug, pendant lighting, and a bench. Each product has been thoughtfully designed to reflect the inspiration we drew from an old building and its skylight. The pendant lighting casts a glowing effect, reminiscent of the natural light that comes in through it. The bench is a comfortable place to sit and enjoy the view of the artificial sky above, while the rug features four pieces that can be arranged to create a unique pattern inspired by the shapes and shadows created by skylights. Overall, our collection shows our appreciation to the wonder of skylights, and how we transformed them into the modern products for the interiors.

Mamo

Marijke De Cock (RDMDC) /
"Act of a Line"

Designer: Marijke De Cock
Collaborators and others: Rodriguez Debal
Website: http://marijkedecock.be/
IG: @marijke_decock

Marijke De Cock lives and works in Antwerp, where she previously studied Fashion at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. She has been working for years as a designer within the team of Dries Van Noten, where she specializes, among other things, in the conception and creation of exceptional ornaments and jewelry. This experience, in a sense, has inspired her personal practice. Indeed, she adopts an established craft that is usually related to the garment, which she allows to function autonomously. It is an ancient and traditional, time-consuming technique which she sensibly juxtaposes with her fascination for the hand that moves by itself, seems to make its own decisions, and transcends thought. It manifests itself in a distinctive series of abstracted, intuitive wall sculptures, adorned with beads. Above all these sculptures celebrate the desire to create, using a material that goes back thousands of years, motivating us from childhood onwards to invent ornaments with it, to embellish a person or a place.

Act of a line is a series of unique but interrelated monochrome wall sculptures that function as serene yet captivating statement pieces within an interior. They stem directly from drawings, created by hand in an automatic, intuitive process, merely referring to themselves, or perhaps to the spirit of the moment they emerged from. Their shapes are free from worldly references, but allow for an abstract, yet narrative reading. In some works Marijke De Cock departs from fragments from her own automatic drawings, and then spontaneously and playfully reconnects them until they form a new ensemble. In close collaboration with a dedicated team of craftsmen in India, these drawings are transformed into tangible objects, adorned with a wealth of glass beads, and executed in either royal blue, gold, or iridescent oil black. The end result, provided with a cut-to-size wooden supporting frame, is typically the outcome of a single drawing. Marijke De Cocks work could be as much an ornamental part of a room as they are an escape from it, inviting you to visit their lustrous landscapes as a new reality, singular and unearthly, enchanting.

Mario Tsai /
"Light From Architecture"

Designer: Mario Tsai
Collaborators and others: Mario Tsai Studio
Website: http://mariotsai.studio/
IG: @mariotsai_official @designew_official @hardware_shop_project

MARIO TSAI, an independent brand of the Mario Tsai Studio, is likewise guided by experimental, flexible thinking, focusing attention on a project’s material characteristics, systematic structure and the sustainability of its life cycle, and integrating into it a soft minimalist aesthetic.

After four years, Mario Tsai Studio presents its eponymous brand MARIO TSAI and the new 2023 collection-Light From Architecture at ALCOVA at Milan Design Week.
Continuing Mario Tsai Studio's research into structure and modularisation, Light From Architecture carries new functional attributes by making the light emitting source part of the product's structure. With hidden light sources as the design starting point, the aim is to create a soft and sensual light experience, comprising three product lines: Pagoda, Bloom and Grid Lighting.
MARIO TSAI has created a special Take it easy popup, and made a customized version of the portable rechargeable Electricity Light that will be randomly seen around the city of Milan during Milan Design Week as an on-the-go fashion item.

Marion Friedmann Gallery /
"A CONCRETE POETRY: cabinets (&more) in cast concrete"

Designers: Stefan Buxbaum / Franz Ferro
Website: http://www.marionfriedmann.com/
IG: @marionfriedmann

Marion Friedmann Gallery/London launched in 2011 as a nomadic gallery for collectible design, craft, and material culture. Friedmann is an established ambassador for promoting exceptional—frequently overlooked— Mexican and Latin American design talent. The gallery merges a penchant for the avant-garde with a passion for celebrating and promoting the most remarkable emerging and established contemporary designers. Seeking significant narratives in creation and objects, it has a passion for material culture, remarkable raw materials, and techniques, unique ideas, artisan-designer collaborations, contemporary craft, sustainable thinking, and social design. The gallery has been at the forefront of discovering talents and nourishing cross-cultural exchange and knowledge transfer since its inception.

The gallery presents a new collection of cabinets in concrete by the artists Stefan Buxbaum (Austria) and Franz Ferro (Austria). The cupboards of Buxbaum—a casting and concrete expert—are technical feats: the corpus is cast in one piece, in a lightweight technique. For his emblematic plant models, the artist applies his chosen specimens and petrifies those paragons of beauty as permanent reliefs on the surface. Lava and fossil-like structures can also be found eternalized in those furniture works. The pieces perfectly blend into the overgrown and deserted concrete beauty and ruin aesthetic of the Alcova venue which shows magnificently (and reassuringly) how the power of nature takes over when left alone. Being cast into a timeless state for eternity, the beauty of nature becomes particularly manifest, the finesse of the plant-world truly obvious. The chaste hardness of concrete highlights the fragile vivacity and tenderness of plant specimens. There is a technical sophistication inherent in his work, which has its own melody and adds a new lightness and aesthetic to the gravity of the material. Franz Ferro is an artist and maker. He is collaborating with Stefan Buxbaum while sharing workshops and expertise. Ferro will show his new concrete desk, an elegant piece of “stone,” perfect to get immersed in one's tasks. The desk distinguishes itself through its pure form where a simple concrete volume carries the wood. Together the two materials form a seamless natural serenity.

Materica /
"INTERNA_MENTE"

Designers: Tiziano Guardini, Luigi Ciuffreda
Website: http://materica.eu
IG: @materica_luxury_coating @luigiciuffreda @tizianoguardini

Materica is a company active in the world of design, architecture, and luxury. Its core business is metallization, i.e. the fusion of metal wires on different and heterogeneous surfaces. Thanks to its forty years of experience, it is recognized as an ideal partner and leader in metal coatings, thanks to which it enhances its customers’ objects with the quality and precision that have always distinguished it. Materica is also a unique reference for the complete realization of a project, since it is able to supply the finished product to its customers from a simple digital file.

INTERNA_MENTE, an installation with which Materica is participating in Milan Design Week 2023 for the first time, is an immersive experience through which the Venetian company describes its alchemical ability to transform matter with exciting and unexpected aesthetic effects. The work, with the design of Tiziano Guardini and Luigi Ciuffreda, will be exhibited in the spaces of Alcova in a former cold storage room that has now become an evocative capsule of mirrors.
The interior of the installation will be entirely covered with metallized MDF sheets, so as to be mirrored, and worked with ever-changing oxidation and coloration, thus creating a kaleidoscope of continuous refractions. The play of reflections, enriched by the multiple color effects, envelops the visitor by infinitely expanding and dilating the dimensions of the environment. It is an instantaneous disconnection from the rest of the world, the access to a suspended, intimate, and protected dimension, where you immediately encounter a mysterious figure that tells other aspects of Materica’s transformative ability. A form that seems to come from an indefinite horizon, molded in resinated polystyrene and totally metallized and mirrored like the entire installation. The metal wire follows its sinuosity and enhances its sculptural plasticity.

Mira Bergh &Josefin Zachrisson /
"Public Space with Private Intentions"

Designers: Mira Bergh &Josefin Zachrisson
Collaborators and others: ArkDes
Website: https://www.swedishgirls.org/
IG: @mirabergh @josefinzachrisson @arkdesc

Mira Bergh (b. 1993) and Josefin Zachrisson (b. 1994) have collaborated since they graduated from Beckmans College of Design in 2019. The duo is based between Milan and Stockholm and works across objects and installations, with a conceptual, and experimental approach. By questioning norms and acknowledging values beyond function, they aim to challenge preconceived notions in materials, contexts, and interactions. They are both a part of the art and design collective Swedish Girls.

We believe that some public spaces should have private intentions. If the public space of the city appeals to a broad and normative public, such neutrality often works to expand some parts of the public realm while restricting others. Through the lenses of pleasure and the emotional relationships we forge with the spaces we share, this installation challenges tendencies towards “neutral” public space. It makes room for visibility and invisibility, trysts, assignation, and play.

"Public Space with Private Intentions'' is an extension of Utomhusverket 2022, a large-scale outdoor installation first presented at ArkDes, the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, in 2022. Utomhusverket is an annual testing ground that makes room for architects and designers to imagine new possibilities for public life. Following Bergh and Zachrisson’s exhibition at Alcova 2021, they have been commissioned to develop the project with their furniture series Seats System as a basis. For Alcova 2023, the duo have scaled up the furniture system into a spatial installation that has functioned as a public and performative space in Stockholm, and now lands in Milan.

MOBILIER NATIONAL /
"MOBILIER NATIONAL"

Designers: Ymer &Malta / Benjamin Graindorge AND Patrick Jouin iD/ Alki
Collaborators and others: Le FRENCH DESIGN and INSTITUT FRANCAIS
Website: http://www.mobiliernational.culture.gouv.fr/fr
IG: @mobiliernational, @lefrenchdesign, @benjamingraindorge_studio, @ymeretmalta, @patrickjouin.id, @alki_furniture

As a supporter of fine crafts and creation since the 17th century, Mobilier national’s mission is to ensure the conservation and restoration of its unique collections, to perpetuate and pass down exceptional craftsmanship. As an essential heritage site, the institution is also a major actor in contemporary creation and the promotion of French decorative arts.
Mobilier national owns a collection of tens of thousands of furniture pieces and objects meant to furnish and decorate public buildings in France and abroad. Three hundred fine craft professionals are working for Mobilier National, in Paris and throughout France.

PROJECT 1 1 : ORRIA
“Modern since the beginning of time,” France’s state-owned Mobilier national (‘national furnishings’) has always presided at the heart of contemporary creation. Characterizing all that is French elegance, the Orria chair, designed by Patrick Jouin and manufactured by Alki, is of double significance. Firstly, it embodies Mobilier national’s desire to be represented not only in the major sites of the French Republic, but wherever its high-quality creations might be promoted. What’s more, Orria bears the mark of an exceptional partnership with the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), renewing its mission of supporting manufacture thanks to the outstanding skills of the Atelier de Recherche et de Création (ARC), which places itself at the interface between project development, craftsmanship, and production.

PROJECT 2: EIDOS XXI
This set, commissioned by Mobilier national and created at the Research and creation workshop of Mobilier national, consisting of a bookcase, a desk, a desk lamp, a floor lamp, and a wall lamp, YMER &MALTA and Benjamin Graindorge started from the principles of the theory of forms and Eidos which, in Plato, is understood according to a double assertion, relating to both the form and the concept. What is a desk? Of what elements is it composed? How does it receive its user in a tangible, intelligible, and sensitive way? From the study of appearances to that of ideas, the duo set out to activate the different possibilities of the material. Inspired, as in many of their projects, by the diversity of landscapes, they have chosen to conceive this set as an interior landscape, a landscape in movement in the enclosed space of the office, a furniture set with organic lines. Each piece responds to the other through a clever play of scale, proportions, techniques, materials, and colors.

MONSTRUM STUDIO /
"SOLAR FLARE SUNSET"

Designer: Riccardo Villa Fabbiati
Collaborators and others: Daniele Filippo Bellonio, Emilie Autune-Gaurade, Veronica Tucci (collaboratori da non citare in press o comunicazione)
Website: https://monstrumstudio.it/
IG: @monstrum.studio @riccardo.villa.fabbiati

MONSTRUM is the design studio founded by Riccardo Villa Fabbiati, architect and creative director living between Milan and Paris. Former designer at Dimorestudio, Bureau Betak, and India Mahdavi, Riccardo debuts at Alcova 2023 with his first collection of objects: Solar Flare Sunset. MONSTRUM is the Latin word signifying a fearful yet seductive being endowed with characteristics foreign to the natural order. Enchanting, sleek, objects to possess the power to amaze—at first sight, dazzling, they offer a rare glimpse of the future and the divine.

For Alcova, MONSTRUM STUDIO stages a potential earthly scenario into a powerful oneiric vision. Stepping on a plain of black sand, the dark remains of stardust and meteorite, the visitor marvels at a mysterious landscape steeped in one eternal sunset. A blaze envelops and silhouettes several slender objects in attendance. They come alive reflecting the unyielding glare and saturate the atmosphere with warm intoxicating light. LILITH, a throne chair in black lacquered bamboo, tapered golden points and a leather cushion with removable gold-chain pendants. On the floor, the light sculpture HYA: a black totem composed of three stackable lamps with a triangular base in glossy black plexiglass. Six SPETTRO sconces on the wall. Their mirrors reflect the room and reveal the internal light. Above, LUCIFUGE ceiling lamp, an alabaster sphere adorned with cascading gold fringes that control light intensity through touch. YONI, a triangular sculptural pin tray with logo detail, is presented in 24k gold and Ag.1000 silver finish. These objects bear the marks of both past and future. Each one is a symbol and a companion in what might be the last aesthetic adventure of humanity.

MUT Design /
"BRUTO"

Designers: ALBERTO SÁNCHEZ / EDUARDO VILLALÓN
Collaborators and others: MIREIA PÉREZ / CARLA ALCALÁ
Website: https://www.instagram.com/bruto_objects/
IG: @bruto_objects

BRUTO was born with the idea of questioning what it means to be brutal.
An imaginary inhabited by raw and honest objects.
Bruto started in MUT Design’s family workshop as a way of experimenting with materials and construction methods with the idea of obtaining unconventional results and blurring the boundaries between art and design—stripped from any rules.
BRUTO is MUT design’s purest essence new brand, a brand that aims to be a home of collaborations with other like-minded creatives and friends.

Product name :Chapa y Pintura chair / Materials: Recycled Steel
Product name :Entorchada Flowers Vases / Materials: Anodised aluminum
Product name :Analogic Vases / Materials: Glass

Muthesius University of Art and Design Kiel /
"HARVEST"

Designers: Christa Carstensen, Qiaoyi Dain, BO Kong, John Feldmann, Britta Huck, Konrad Ruben Freyer, Ben Wesch, Arvid Riemeyer, Jesse Jacobsen, Karl Sperhake, Paul Meyer
Collaborators and others: Curated by Martin Postler &Benjamin Unterluggauer
Sponsor: Muthesius University of Art and Design Kiel
Website: https://en.muthesius-kunsthochschule.de/industrial-design/
IG: @muidkiel

The industrial design department of the Muthesius University of Art and Design in Kiel is one of the most prestigious design programmes in Germany. Located at the Baltic sea in the upper north of Germany the department's work spans from industry collaborations and technology research to governmental design strategies and life sciences, and focuses on a holistic and universal design approach.

“Harvest” is an exhibition by students of the industrial design department of the Muthesius University of Art and Design Kiel which deals with the metrics of large-scale change and individual consumption.
“Harvest” is a series of 6 products that process and deliver a measured portion of different, valuable and necessary commodities such as clean water, warmth/- cold, energy and “matter” to one household.

Their aim is to investigate the potential to use design, technology, data, and knowledge to develop a series of devices that integrate in contemporary domestic environments and offer valid perspectives towards
how to solve global problems by offering pinpointed solutions—to climb the mountain a step at a time.
Design can deliver that.

N/A /
"Natalia Triantafylli / Andrew Scott"

Designers: Natalia Triantafylli / Andrew Scott
Website: http://nataliatriantafylli.com/
IG: @nataliatriantafylli @andrewpiercescott

Natalia Triantafylli and Andrew Scott are London based designers and investigative makers with a shared fascination with material culture and the history of objects. Natalia engages in a dialogue between physical and digital ways of making by creating hybrid objects that consist of handmade ceramics and their 3D printed alter egos. Andrew creates furniture using sheets of mild steel: a material which at first seems rigid and cold, but upon manipulation begins to offer up its warm voice and fluid determination.

Andrew Scott and Natalia Triantafylli are showing objects made with their distinctive individual style—Natalia’s 3d printing plastic/ceramic and Andrew’s blackened sheet steel—pushing forward their shared belief that objects have soul. In addition to these, they joined forces for the first time to create a collaborative collection that combines ceramic elements with metal structures. Their interpretation of attention to detail is based around showing signs of the hand of the maker, allowing one to connect with them more strongly. Objects normally mass-manufactured like switches, hinges, and bolts are instead bespoke. Welds, creases, and fingerprints remain within the work, there to be seen by the viewer like treasures in a magpie’s nest; silent indicators of their unique nature.

NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti /
"L’Allievo. Un dialogo tra generazioni di progettisti NABA"

Designers: "Designer e docenti NABA: Andrea Mancuso - Analogia Project, Thanos Zakopoulos - CTRLZAK Art &Design Studio, Andrea De Chirico, Niko Koronis, Giacomo Moor, Donata Paruccini, Matteo Ragni Design Studio, Sara Ricciardi, Valerio Sommella, Philippe Tabet, Marco Zavagno - Zaven; Studenti e alumni dell’Area Design di NABA: Mattia Baron, Weam Baroudi, Andrea Bonzio, Tommaso Chiusi, Gaia Colella, Sofia Laura D’andrea, Paolo De Castiglioni, Eleonora dello Iacono, Debora Di Pinto, Federica Gianni, Aniello Iervolino, Santa Laude, Marilea Liantonio, Tianyu Ma, Rebecca Mauri, Francesca Novaro, Daniele Padovani, Jenni Palokaj, Martina Petiti, Aurora Possenti, Riccardo Proli, Cecilia Raimondi, Mirko Sconza, Lucrezia Venturelli, Leiyi Zhu"
Website: http://www.naba.it
IG: "@naba_design @clarcher @italorota @sovrappensierodesign @wvuvl @ginevra_stuto

NABA is an international academy focused on arts and design. It is the largest Academy of Fine Arts in Italy and the first one to have been recognized by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR), back in 1981. At its two campuses in Milan and Rome, NABA offers academic diplomas equivalent to first and second level university degrees. NABA was selected by the QS World University Rankings® by Subject Art &Design as the Best Academy of Fine Arts in Italy and among the top 100 universities in the world.

The exhibition “L'Allievo [The Student]. A dialogue between generations of NABA designers” displays the human and design relations established between students and lecturers within the Academy, in a continuous sequence of multidisciplinary experiences generating research and projects: learning by thinking, learning by doing and teaching by learning. An exchange between individuals that is the foundation of learning. A collective gaze over today’s world of design, born from the dialogue between the iconic products of some of the leading figures in the world of contemporary design, all lecturers at NABA, and the design outputs of the students and alumni of the Academy’s Design Area, through the different project phases. An idea by Claudio Larcher, NABA Design Area Leader, and Italo Rota, NABA Scientific Advisor Project by Claudio Larcher with Sovrappensiero Design Studio, designers and NABA lecturers Designers and NABA lecturers: Andrea Mancuso - Analogia Project, Thanos Zakopoulos - CTRLZAK Art &Design Studio, Andrea De Chirico, Niko Koronis, Giacomo Moor, Donata Paruccini, Matteo Ragni Design Studio, Sara Ricciardi, Valerio Sommella, Philippe Tabet, Marco Zavagno – Zaven NABA Design Area students and alumni: Mattia Baron, Weam Baroudi, Andrea Bonzio, Tommaso Chiusi, Gaia Colella, Sofia Laura D’andrea, Paolo De Castiglioni, Eleonora dello Iacono, Debora Di Pinto, Federica Gianni, Aniello Iervolino, Santa Laude, Marilea Liantonio, Tianyu Ma, Rebecca Mauri, Francesca Novaro, Daniele Padovani, Jenni Palokaj, Martina Petiti, Aurora Possenti, Riccardo Proli, Cecilia Raimondi, Mirko Sconza, Lucrezia Venturelli, Leiyi Zhu.

Natural Material Studio /
"BRICK TEXTILES - Weaving bricks back into architecture"

Designers: Bonnie Hvillum &Zuzanna Skurka
Collaborators and others: Zuzanna Skurka
Website: http://www.naturalmaterialstudio.com
IG: @natural.material.studio @zuzannaskurka

Natural Material Studio is a Danish cross-disciplinary design company that drives toward changing our collective understanding and relation to materials. The studio works with both science, biology, technology, design and art as the building blocks to create the new normal for sustainable living. Today, the studio researches, designs and produces unique, bio-based materials for their own works as well as commissions. Zuzanna Skurka is a designer, craftsman, researcher, and material translator. In her trans-disciplinary practice, she is focused on translation between materials, systems, and ways of understanding. In the latest quasi-academic research, she analyzes modern brick production and proposes alternative tools to reimagine architecture.

With their material installation “Brick Textiles - Weaving bricks back into architecture,” Natural Material Studio and material translator Zuzanna Skurka want to re-think the symbolic, tectonic and semiotics around bricks to create an expanded understanding for architecture today and for the future. When we look at the brick, it is almost a synonym with solid, structural, protective, shielding walls. But what if bricks could also represent the opposite qualities and properties - soft, flexible, tactile, transparent? Their material installation for Alcova this year is aimed to explore a new materiality and geo-politic reflections based on Polish postwar bricks.

NEMO architects /
"Habitarematerials"

Designer: NEMO architects
Collaborators and others: Cover Story, CWP, Durat, Johanna Gullichsen, Kärävä, Nordic Copper, Novo Wood, Pihlgren &Ritola, Sera Helsinki, Stala, Luonnon Betoni, Laatupaneeli, Tulikivi and VM-Carpet
Sponsor: Habitare
Website: http://habitarematerials.com/
IG: @habitarefair @habitarematerials

Designed by NEMO architects Jussi Laine and Maria Klemetti Laine, Habitarematerials was created for Habitare, Finland’s largest furniture, design, and interior decoration event, and seen in the event for the first time in 2019. Habitarematerials Milan will be the first time that Habitare has brought its own exhibition to an international event outside Finland.

Habitarematerials is an experiential and inspiring material library based on the concept of democratizing design. The exhibition offers visitors space and freedom to browse through materials and explore their own tastes by experimenting with different combinations of surfaces and colors. The materials are attractively presented, and there is product information on each sample that visitors can photograph and take with them for making purchases. Habitarematerials Milan incorporates a spatial exhibition design, samples from Finnish material suppliers, and unique furniture made from materials from participating companies. The exhibition features 14 Finnish companies: Cover Story, CWP, Durat, Johanna Gullichsen, Karava, Nordic Copper, Novo Wood, Pihlgren &Ritola, Sera Helsinki, Stala, Luonnon Betoni, Laatupaneeli, Tulikivi, and VM-Carpet.

No Studio Name -- Collaboration between Lucia Neamtu and Kouros Maghsoudi /
"Soft Reflections"

Designers: Kouros Maghsoudi, Lucia Neamtu
Collaborators and others: Bufalini is the production and fabrication partner
Website: http://kourosmaghsoudi.com http://lucianeamtu.com
IG: @kourosmaghsoudi @lucieinthesky @bufalinimarmi

A self-taught multidisciplinary artist and designer, Kouros's approach is steeped in an investigation of future cultures, gathering cues from fashion and metropolitanism. Kouros' fantasy is unapologetically tinged with sex, liberation, opulence, and self-indulgence. Kouros’ work has been featured in countless publications, including Elle Decor, Architectural Digest, and Vogue Living. Lucia Neamtu is a curator and designer based in NYC. She weaves between commissions, furniture design and art direction spanning the globe. Graduated at Parsons School of design, Lucia has worked on projects large and small imbuing each with a distinct blend of sharp modernism and a signature touch of the surreal. A master of subtlety, her artistry extends from daring, curating and building new spaces

Soft Reflections features a selection of marble mirrors and furniture that have been expertly cut to achieve a unique and intriguing appearance. The pieces are crafted to manipulate the marble into soft and elegant designs, which create an intriguing visual effect of fluidity, contrasting the marble's inherently hard nature. Each mirror is carefully crafted to embody the natural beauty of marble, with every pattern and movement unique to that piece. The mirrors come in a range of sizes, each with a topographic and wave-like design inspired by the gentle waves of Carrara’s Ligurian sea, located just a few kilometers from where these pieces are expertly fabricated. Soft Reflections is a remarkable collection of marble furniture and mirrors that pays homage to the unparalleled craftsmanship and design sensibility of Italian artisans. Each piece is meticulously handcrafted in Italy with the utmost care and attention to detail, resulting in furniture and mirrors that are both functional and stunningly beautiful.

NM3 /
"NMAA - NM3 Buröcore"

Designer: NM3
Collaborators and others: Graphic design by Metaprog
Webssite: https://nm3.xyz/
IG: @nm3.xyz

NM3 does interiors, products, and custom furniture with a strong focus on raw material and geometric rigor. NM3 wants to extract specificity through the strictly ordinary: average industrial elements are assembled through common techniques, focusing on form and composition which underlie, at the same time, their ordinary abstractness and infinite possibilities.

Bürocore is an installation of functional objects from domestic and work environments.
Bürocore is Hannes Meyer’s new “Co-op Interieur” where private and work life merge.
Bürocore is an architectural exaltation of computational schematism.
Against corporate coziness for a new gravitas and sobriety.

Novo Typo /
"Analog Aesthetics"

Designer: Mark van Wageningen
Website: https://www.novotypo.nl/
IG: @novotypo

Novo Typo’s approach to design is deeply rooted in a love for craftsmanship and an investigative approach to design, production-techniques, tools, materials, and their context. The output of the studio can be situated on the cutting edge between design, applied arts and craftsmanship. Mark van Wageningen is the founder of Novo Typo, a (typo)graphic design studio and font foundry based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He is the author of design awarded books, such as Typewood, Novo Typo Color Book, Type and Color and Novo Typo Offgrid. His work is translated into English, German, and Chinese.

Can graphic designers be self-sufficient? Can graphic designers recycle their own work? Can graphic designers design their own color system? Based on the core idea that a typographic design studio that designs and produces its own letters should also be able to make its own ink and paper. Analog Aesthetics explains how we can produce our own locally sourced paper and plant or mineral based inks, in order to create our own parameters of design. In the background of this exercise lies the need to face a global overly complex system of production, supply chains, and restrictive industrial standards, that have shown their dangerous disruptive effects. Analog Aesthetics is part of Novo Typo Offgrid, an ongoing research project about self-sufficiency and sustainability within the context of graphic design. The project started during the first lockdown in 2020 and is designed and produced in close proximity to Novo Typo’s Amsterdam studio. The project is described in the book Novo Typo Offgrid which is available through booksellers worldwide. The subsequent publication Analog Aesthetics will be launched during Milan Design Week 2023.

Objects of Common Interest /
"ECHOES"

Designers: Eleni Petaloti and Leonidas Trampoukis
Collaborators and others: Support by Angelino Artworks
Website: https://objectsofcommoninterest.com
IG: @objects_of_common_interest @angelinoartworks

Eleni Petaloti and Leonidas Trampoukis are a duo behind the studio Objects of Common Interest, working within the realm of art, design, and architecture, blending projects in scale from objects and installations to interactive immersive environments and interior spaces. They are also founding partners of the sibling studio LOT office for architecture, and they are based between New York and Athens.
Their work has been exhibited at art and design institutions, galleries, and fairs–including solo shows at the Noguchi Museum, Etage Projects, Carwan Gallery, Architecture Biennale, and the Salone del Mobile in Milan.
Their work allows various kinds of collaboration such as the partnership with Kvadrat to produce the object/installation Doric Column–Kinetic Object, and public installations such as the project Lights On, which was commissioned by Cultural Capital of Italy 2023. Objects of common interest were formed with the focus on creating still-life installations and experiential environments and objects, demonstrating a fixation with materiality, concept, and tangible spatial experiences. The work roots from an amalgamation of thinking and making between two diverse poles, Greece and New York. Objects of Common Interest were among the judges for Wallpaper* Design Awards for 2023. In the year 2022, they were named ‘Designers of the year’ and won the Wallpaper* Design award 2022. For the last two consecutive years, they have been honorees for the AD100 list 2022 of the top designers and architects and they also won the design prize 2021 for experimentation by Designboom Awards. Their work has been widely featured in the press including The Wall Street Journal, TMagazine, Wallpaper*, Elle Decor, Surface Magazine, Architectural Digest, FRAME, and PHAIDON publishers.

This project is a homage to the rich cultural heritage of historic Italian public fountains that serve as hubs for communal gathering, nodes for social interaction. The fountain is a 3-meter-high, cone-shaped air structure that aims to challenge and deconstruct traditional notions of fountains as merely decorative elements of urban environments. Its minimalist geometric form and the transparent biodegradable PVC material allow visitors to observe hidden elements that are typically concealed in other fountains such as the water pump and the water recirculation system. The inflatable fountain floats atop a constructed reflective water pond creating a striking contrast between permanence and impermanence, rigidness and delicacy.

OLDER


Website: http://olderstudio.com
IG: @olderstudio

ONE TO ONE /
"OTO CHAIR"

Designers: Alessandro Stabile + MartinelliVenezia
Website: https://onetooneobjects.com/
IG: @one_to_one_objects @alestab @martinellivenezia

A manifesto of circular design, an innovative thought that becomes a brand. OTO Chair is the recycled plastic chair designed by Alessandro Stabile and Martinelli Venezia, marking the birth of One To One, the brand created to focus on change and activate conscious and sustainable lifestyles through design. One To One presents its first product, OTO Chair, a chair inspired by the circular economy that implements a fully sustainable approach and supply chain. The chair, made of recycled plastic, is produced using a single mold, a third of the size of traditional molds, and sold by optimizing all production stages, from logistics to transportation. The chair can be purchased online (https://onetooneobjects.com/ ) and arrives at the buyer's address within a day, disassembled inside an eco-friendly flat package, just like the product it contains. Thanks to the collaboration with Ogyre—the first digital platform of Fishing For Litters, every chair purchased contributes to removing 500 grams of marine litter. OTO Chair is a minimalist and industrial icon, democratic and very easy to assemble, with an intuitive interlocking system that does not require screws or inserts of any kind.

Pictalab &Nicolò Castellini Baldissera /
"PPP. Portaluppi Pattern Project"



Pictalab was born 15 years ago from the passion for decoration of Orsola Clerici and Chiara Troglio. Since then Pictalab has grown to become an interior decoration workshop capable of covering a spectrum of interventions ranging from pictorial decoration on walls and paper, to special finishes even on furniture and interior design objects, and counting on the collaboration of about 20 professionals. Today, in a space of more than 250 square meters in the Officine de Rolandi a large team of decorators handcrafts hand-painted wallpapers using a variety of techniques: from fresco to trompe l'oeil, from coating to lacquer.
Nicolò Castellini Baldissera was born in Milan in the family home, Casa degli Atellani, a fine example of Italian Renaissance excellence. He belongs to an illustrious Italian design dynasty and from an early age grew up surrounded by art and architecture: his great-grandfather was the famous architect Piero Portaluppi and his father was the prominent architect Piero Castellini Baldissera. In the late 1980s he moved to London to study Art History at Sotheby’s and has since lived nomadically between Italy, France, Britain, Switzerland, North America, and North Africa, cultures that have strongly inspired his work.

The aim of the previous collection “Portaluppi Herbarium” was to transpose pictorial into architecture, this time PPP wants to translate architectural structures into pictorial. The second collaboration between Pictalab and Nicolò Castellini Baldissera celebrates the growing interest for the heritage left by Piero Portaluppi and in particular his patterns. The collection features 11 subjects in different variants revisiting the originals taken from floors, gates, tiles, and mosaics from Portaluppi’s Milanese signature buildings as Villa Necchi, Casa Corbellini Wassermann or Casa degli Atellani, a palette of geometric Patterns classic by birth and modern by interpretation. The rhythm with which the marbles, briars, and paints punctuate the wall, creates a pathos that outdoes the temporal classification depicting an eclecticism that rediscovers and injects contemporary energy to the legacy of one of the greatest artists. Once again we encounter the concept of “Living in beauty,” a lifestyle embraced by the members of an enlightened bourgeoisie that always puts beauty, art and culture at the forefront, and that has inspired Pictalab in all of its creations.

POLCHA /
"Sea Project"



POLCHA studio was founded by two friends, Pauline Leyravaud and Charlotte Tarbouriech, who combined art and fashion. Pauline, an ESAG-Penninghen graduate and gold medalist, specializes in frescoes, trompe-l'oeil, and scenography. She uses classical and modern cultures to experiment with natural and responsible techniques. Charlotte, a Studio Bercot graduate, specializes in shoe design and has worked as a consultant for various fashion houses. With experience in the footwear industry, she now turns to craftsmanship to express her convictions.

POLCHA Studio is a design studio that challenges conventional practices by using research as a playground to explore new and untested areas. They focus on techniques and materials, particularly painting, to transcend the boundaries of trompe-l'œil, gradient effects, and frescoes, offering a new visual language that is creative, non-conformist, and joyful. They blur the boundaries between art and design, putting nature back at the forefront of living spaces through recurring themes of water, graphics, color, and vegetation. Their terracotta tile collection, inspired by the sea, is produced sustainably in collaboration with the Alain Vagh workshop in the south of France. They limit resource consumption and waste production by collecting clay from a nearby quarry and using an efficient recovery system. Shades of blue, representing the different layers of the water surface and seabed, are a key element in their work. They play with and distort spaces through optical illusions echoing the ripples of water. POLCHA Studio's project also includes the design of indoor/outdoor furniture with terracotta tiles, using a modular approach for greater flexibility. Through their unique and sustainable designs, they create a phantasmagorical and recreational world, asserting their singularity and offering a new perspective on the intersection of art and design.

Project 213A




Project 213A is a European design house founded in 2020 as an idea by four friends linked by a common design philosophy. The brand’s goal is to create modern as well as unique furniture and home accessories that are timeless with a commitment to work towards a more sustainable future. The name of the brand, Project 213A, refers to a London based address where all four founders each have lived in—at different times throughout their studies.

PROWL X M4 /
"Expect Death"



PROWL is a design studio creating new solutions for people and the planet by employing materials, processes, and technology more responsibly. “We are reorienting industrial design to achieve a regenerative future.”

Expect Death is an ode to hemp and a radical proposition for the fast furniture industry. A collaboration between PROWL Studio and M4 Factory, the exhibition features a more responsible alternative to the ubiquitous plastic stacking chair that is made entirely out of hemp and can be returned to the earth when it no longer serves its purpose. Visitors will be immersed in the chair’s journey—from birth to death.

PULKRA /
"UNLIKELY IMPOSSIBLE"



Pulkra brings spaces to life with coherence and character. Essential lines, innovative materials and significant details. Through pioneering research in chemistry, Pulkra offers sophisticated, refined, minimalist, never banal concrete products: the search for the best balance of shapes and proportions for a scenographic effect. Pulkra respects concrete in its honesty, avoiding glossy finishes and enhancing its imperfections. With constant research and an innovative approach to the project, Pulkra makes concrete elegant and contemporary.

This double negative opens the door to possibility. Pulkra showcases its laboratory, showing the complete research for achieving something unexpected, made with unprecedented materials and unique production processes. Now the possibilities are endless, we just have to investigate further. Minimal lines, innovative materials, and significant details: three adjectives to describe the Pulkra approach. The brand, developed entirely in Italy, stems from a love for concrete and is dedicated to the quest for beauty. At Alcova 2023—with “Unlikely Impossible”—Pulkra presents a selection of projects made by Stormo, Finemateria, Martinelli Venezia and Pio &Tito Toso. The visual identity is entrusted to Studio Iknoki and the soundscape is designed by Wade Black &Francesco Presotto.

RINCK /
"Passage"



Rinck is an interior design company specializing in furniture, decorative arts, and boiserie, respecting the legacy of the Ensembliers Décorateurs to which the firm is heir. The contemporary collections from Rinck demonstrate how firmly the company stands at the crossroads of innovation, creation, and savoir-faire, bringing into sharp focus the rare quality of an establishment that is home to both craftspeople and designers, artisans who so passionately inspire and take inspiration from one another that, at times, it blurs the boundaries between their trades. A modern and exacting vision.

For its 2023 collection, Rinck wanted to explore the ties between nature and mankind’s intervention therein. A house’s informal entrance, often accessed through a side or back door and traditionally known as the “mudroom” in English country houses and American homes, is the symbolic point of passage from outdoors to indoors, from vegetation to civilization. It seemed a space conducive to creative reflection and inspiration. Following these reflections, Rinck presents a kind of mise en abyme of its intrinsic connection to matter, to natural materials, paying homage to the very foundations of its trades. By featuring raw wood, or by imitating nature with trompe-l'oeil painting recalling onyx, the collection’s elements tease and intrigue the observer. Vegetation is invited to reclaim its rightful place, making this entrance to the home, this transition between two worlds, an embodiment of our uncertainty about our planet’s future, as questions of ecological disaster and climate crisis loom on the horizon. What will be left of our creations? Will nature take over? What if someone were to rediscover this room 500 years from now? The end of the industrial world may sound frightening, but it could also be a transition in its own right, a time of great hope and new beginnings.

Ryuichi Kozeki / RKDS /
"Diag/"



Consider a structure where a line passing through a hollow is supported by the weight of an object. The lines boldly divide the space diagonally. Although the line may appear light, it receives significant physical force. However, the massive object remains fixed in position due to its weight and can provide firm support for the line. By sharing the role of supporting, each independent object creates a relationship with one other, resulting in a kind of tension between them. Ryuichi Kozeki believex that this tension becomes one of the roots of beauty here. Even today, his curiosity about the relationship between the “appearanc”" of things and the space and people around them remains unchanged. His curiosity is rooted in shapes’ formation and origin and their relationships. He strongly believes that the aesthetic element only arises as a result of that. He attempted to concretely express relationships and tension as tangible objects through lighting and to embody a part of the development process.

Sangmin Oh/Osangmin Studio /
"Knitted Light"



Sangmin Oh established his own design &art studio in 2021, based in the Netherlands and Korea. He is influenced by sculptural crafts, textile techniques, color of explored materials, and architectural elements. He focuses on observing trivial and small empty spaces, aside from spaces that are displayed amongst people's daily hectic movements. “I want to fill up those brief, empty spaces. They can be filled up with emotional or visual stories and even with new realizations.”

Light and textiles can combine to create magical stories. The Knitted Light project, in collaboration with the Textile Museum in Tilburg, explores the sophisticated beauty of knitting different textile materials. Monofilament thread is selected for its unique response to flexible elastic yarns, creating new forms through contraction and expansion. The resulting 3D shapes and interplay of light are inspired by the enchanting atmosphere of glowing coral reefs in the sea. The textile's material is enhanced by the various sources of light it can be exposed to. In daylight, it appears as a sculpture with natural colors, patterns, and textures. When exposed to artificial light, the textile transforms, creating new beauty and dimensions. Even in darkness, it glows, emulating the radiance of coral reefs. This is where we observe the intricate patterns and shapes with greater nuance. Furthermore, as coral reefs are losing their colors and struggling to glow due to rising seawater temperatures, Knitted Light hopes to not only show the phenomenal beauty of light through textile objects, but also enlighten a deeper appreciation for the natural world’s exquisite beauty.

Stantec /
"A valuable collection of things"



Present in Italy for 50 years, Stantec stands out for its innovative and integrated approach to design, with a focus on sustainability. Its commitment to the urban regeneration of sites awaiting to be claimed by the city has grown as cities keep on evolving, aiming to better the quality of life and respecting the environment. Infrastructure, environment and safety, energy, water, waste, decommissioning, real estate, transportation, sustainability and ESG are the sectors in which it operates. Its purpose is “Design with community in mind”: placing the well-being of the community in which it operates at the heart of its design.

The focus is on the theme of valorizing the resources present in abandoned sites, analyzing how many elements and objects are an intellectual, material and economic capital. In this regard, reuse is understood as a fundamental practice today for the world of design and architecture, an operation capable of preserving and producing value. “A valuable collection of things” is a magnifying glass on a rich and fascinating place that people tend to see and remember through its macro parts but that manifests a great variety and value even in its smallest details and in the most ordinary elements for those who take a closer look. An inventory of objects found during explorations throughout the Ex Macello area covers the walls and floor of a room in one of the buildings of the site. A carpet and a wallpaper composed of abstract patterns of shapes and colors in which you can appreciate the qualities of the objects themselves and in front of which can be be pushed to question their present and future meaning.

Stories of Italy /
"Broken Charm"

Designer: Dario Buratto
Website: storiesofitaly.com
IG: @stories_of_italy

Stories of Italy presents "Broken Charm".
Luminous jewelry.
A chandelier designed to be endlessly customizable thanks to its modular system of chains and mobile pendants, an oversized charm bracelet broken down and reassembled.

Brass casting structure and luminous glass bodies are thought of as precious gems. The Broken Charm exhibition tells the colorful and shining cosmogony of Stories of Italy, the result of innovative techniques grafted on the traditional blowing of Murano glass.

Studio Cengiz Hartmann /
"Human spirit and material reach out their hands to each other"



In northern mythology the first two humans were trees, called Ask and Embla. 3. By questioning the cultural behavior of each having its own single plate, Giant Plates are an invitation to celebrate and share dinner. To initiate relations between people, food, and objects is essential for the pieces. Crafted for an experimental diner by Steinbeisser with Jeong Kwan. 4. While referring to the ancient myth, Narcissus deals with current topics. By transforming and combining original materials - water, earth, fire - the inexpressible becomes visible.

Studio davidpompa /
"Stone Archive"



Studio davidpompa creates unique objects with a strong commitment to materials rooted in Mexican culture. A collective work of creative people, developing a unique visual language. Based in the heart of Mexico City, in the la Roma Norte neighborhood, the studio is on a constant journey to discover new aspects of craftsmanship and materiality. The pieces study the interaction between crafts and visual language, each of them reflecting a new chapter of the studio’s story. The collection is shaped by a timeless aesthetic that is translated into forms and natural finishes, enhanced by light. It demonstrates a commitment to creating objects of high quality, both strongly tactile and beautifully crafted.

“STONE ARCHIVE” installation presents new light sculptures by Mexican studio davidpompa. The new series of light sculptures named “Ambra Toba” combines volumes of ancient stones and aluminum. The centerpiece is the Mexican “Toba volcánica” stone that consists of minerals, glass, and volcanic debris ejected one million years ago during severe eruptions. Fragments in the geometrical surfaces are testament to these explosions and movement. The connecting components between the sculptural stone elements and the aluminum parts originate from intensive research involving the linking of unique handmade shapes with industrial parts. Each piece is crafted and assembled in Mexico. The studio reflects on its research-based process and investigation.Tall archival shelves filled with stones, folders and prototypes allow the light sculptures to connect with the visual journey of their own design evolution and frame the exhibition space. Visitors are invited to take single archive folders with them, an interaction that underlines the ephemeral character of the installation.

Studio GISTO with hund.studio /
"FRANTOIO SOCIALE"



Frantoio Sociale is a research project born in 2021 developed by Studio GISTO with hund.studio. Through the workshops and events, it analyzes and experiments with different methods and material transformation processes and promotes circular systems of retrieval and reuse of resources, in an area with a collaborative approach, to reflect on the current development system.

The project's aim is to reveal and promote alternative practices of transformation and re-circulation of materials through workshops, events and dialogues. The central and necessary tool for the development of the project is the transportable Crunchy Crusher machine, which can transform waste material into new raw material for a wide range of uses. Frantoio Social has taken part and cooperated in several experimental projects over the years: in 2021, in Venice, as part of the exhibition “Non-Extractive Architecture,” and in 2022, during Milan Design Week through workshops, exhibitions, talks and itinerant performances to explain demolition as a circular process to be exploited. For ALCOVA 2023 Frantoio Sociale presents itself to the public as a meeting space to discuss circularity, material flows, waste, raw materials, and much more. It is a cooperative working environment in which explores different techniques for transforming and recovering materials found on the ALCOVA worksite in order to create objects, prototypes, and new materials. In cooperation with Charly Blödel, BraceBrace, Hypereden, Benedetta Pompili Studio, Angelo Renna, Material Crush.

Studio Lugo /
"Amorphous Series - Cabinet 001"



Studio Lugo is an interdisciplinary design studio based in Istanbul that aims to intersect cumulative design knowledge with contemporary approaches in the fields of detailing, crafting and experimenting in the range of interior design to product design.

Cabinet 001 is a unique piece of furniture that transcends time and style. Inspired by the concept of time travel, this sculptural cabinet blends design elements from different eras to create a statement piece that stands out in any space. With a bold stance and striking features, Cabinet 001 seamlessly blends different periods of architecture and design by being a homage to the Art Deco period and the Memphis Design movement while incorporating its own eclectic twist. As a drinking cabinet, Cabinet 001 embodies the rituals of celebration, partying, and enjoyment by inviting you to elevate your daily routines and embrace an utopian way of living. During the design process of the cabinet, creating a sculptural piece with sleek and non-conventional elegance through bold colors, patterns and sweeping curves was prioritized. The product is delightfully shaped with artisanal local craftsmanship. Its softly curved silhouette is made of bent plywood and the inner and outer shells are veneered with wood while design enriched with partial stainless brass touches, and leather accessories. High-contrast material selection is entitled to be an example of eclecticism and exclusiveness. Cabinet 001 is a work of art that represents the essence of time travel and luxury while giving physical form to abstract ideas.

STUDIO MUSA /
"Playground Carpet"



Studio Musa is an architectural practice based in Milan and founded in 2020 by Francesca Malagni and Rebecca Peretti. They work in different branches of architecture: design of retail spaces, interiors, artistic installation, set design and event design from the creative direction to the final realization. Studio Musa ’s projects represent their personal feedback to the world, creating spaces, objects and atmospheres.

Studio Musa presents “Playground Carpet”. The idea of this setting highlights the personal feeling we get from the historical period we are living in. For them, this symbolic carpet is a message of union and inclusivity; made up by different archetype forms (square, cylinder, triangle), with a diversified and changing motive that accepts and emphasizes the fulls and the empties that the different figures create between them. The different shades characterize every single element and donate character and uniquenesses to the total drawing. The composition can vary, the position of the single element isn’t important, what matters is the composition of the whole: a surface, a piece of furniture, a partition. Their carpet represents the idea of our existence; the coexistence between different elements, which, each with its single characteristics, make up a bigger, more complex, but still playful reality.

Studio Thier &van Daalen /
"GRID &BULLA lights"



Iris van Daalen &Ruben Thier share their fascination for reflections, colors and the elasticity of materials. Over and over, they see it as a challenge to get hold of these matters and translate them into sustainable designs. They create designs for lighting, furniture, jewelry, accessories and unique objects, commissioned by brands and labels or on their own initiative. They combine their sense of aesthetics with various techniques such as digital modeling and fabrication and craftsmanship to make use of the full potential wherein innovation and elegance come together.

GRID pedant light A series of glass blown pendant lights, with mesmerizing and bulbous shapes, in which the main role is played by the reflection created through the structured glass surface. The studio has intensively researched different effects in glass. The beam of light from the custom developed spotlight is projected almost invisibly on and through the structured glass, leaving a soft and almost hypnotizing effect on its surroundings like rippling water or cloudy skies. BULLA wall light A series of glass blown wall lamps that originated from the love for the 'bubble', the starting point in glassblowing. The glass is hand blown freely and not in a wooden mold, therefore each piece is unique. The studio developed a light element, which follows the inner shape like an infinite loop, casting beautiful color reflections on the environment. Craft and technology come together.

Studio Umut Yamac /
"TRACE"

Website: umutyamac.com

Umut Yamac is a London based architect and designer whose work is characterized by a multidisciplinary approach; exploring the middle ground between architecture and light. Umut established his design studio in 2011 to focus on creating objects and installations that are responsive to both the user and the space through playful interaction and movement. Often taking inspiration from nature, conceptual ideas are tested through a hands-on process of making where the workshop plays a central role in the development and realization of each project.

TRACE is a site-specific installation made from over 2000m of tensioned cord that weaves through the historic stairwell at La Villetta. The illuminated cord cuts through the space, like a 3-Dimensional drawing, floating and meandering between the floors to create a new spatial experience. Solid, yet translucent, the layered lines of cord create a visual play for the visitor’s perception of space, depth, and movement. TRACE is the latest installment of the studio’s exploration of thread and its potential to create spatial experiences.

The New Raw /
"Knotty"



The New Raw is a research and design studio based in Rotterdam (Netherlands) founded in 2015 by architects Panos Sakkas and Foteini Setaki with the ambition to give new life to discarded materials through design, robots, and craftsmanship. The New Raw has developed a growing body of work which advocates for a sustainable use of plastic to spring a positive environmental and societal impact. Projects range from exploratory research on city and marine plastic pollution, to experimentation with local fabrication and production, to participatory design methodologies.

Rotterdam-based design studio The New Raw, run by architects Panos Sakkas and Foteini Setaki, will participate in the 2023 Milan Design Week with the project “Knotty”—a collection of playful benches with a bold and tactile texture, on display at Alcova.

Inspired by knitting techniques, the project treats plastic waste as a continuous thread of material which folds, twists and loops to create an intriguing tactile surface that resembles textiles, and which invites users to touch it.

This innovative 3D sculpted fabric dresses a new family of benches, produced in three different sizes and two colors: mint and peach. Made in the shape of bent and swinging blocks, their silhouette fosters interaction and invites spontaneous use. Their scattered layout along the Gallery of Porta Vittoria’s former slaughterhouse, re-arranges and transforms the space in a playful manner, while providing an opportunity for rest and an ideal conversation starter.

The sculpted material texture, consisting of thick and seemingly soft knots, creates a tactile, permeable and load-bearing type of surface for outdoor and indoor furniture or other architectural applications. “Knitted patterns” can be upscaled and become ornaments and building units that embody a new digitally-crafted materiality.

This is Denmark /
"This is Denmark"

Curators: Elena Cattaneo + Laura Traldi - Exhibition Design: Matteo Ragni Studio - Sound + Video: Alessandro Pedretti + Silvano Richini
Official Designers Name: 101 Copenhagen, Astep, AYTM, Carlsberg, &Tradition , Fredericia, HOUE, House of Finn Juhl, Kay Bojesen, Kvadrat, Matias Moellenbach, Mernøe, Notes of Colour, Royal Copenhagen, Skovby, Studio Roso
Collaborators and other Credits: Royal Danish Embassy, The Confederation of Danish Industry and Creative Denmark
Sponsors: Abet Laminati, Bang &Olufsen, Essential
Website: https://italien.um.dk/it
IG:@thisis.denmark

Say Danish Design and for most people the same image springs to mind: a cozy interior that evokes a quiet but deep comfort, the essence of what we mean when we say “the happiness of small things.” Often confused with a styling approach, hygge is a well-being factor that owes a lot to the solid good design history that Denmark can boost. THIS IS DENMARK features Danish design from a different angle, one that doesn’t deny hygge but focuses on the reasons why hygge exists: good design, imbued in all human activities, spaces, and experiences. THIS IS DENMARK will stage the essence of good Danish design: the thought-out simplicity, the care for people and nature, the cutting-edge research approach, the heritage, the sophisticated craftsmanship, the international outlook. It will do so through the stories of 15 products and companies, set in an evocative landscape. THIS IS DENMARK is an experiential exhibition: visitors will be immersed in a scenery made of water and wood and will be able to enjoy a specifically created soundtrack featuring the sounds of the making of the objects.

TU BI project /
"TU BI project"

Designer: Ivan Tafuro
Website: http://www.tubiproject.com
IG: @_tu_bi_

Ivan Tafuro is an independent designer based in Milan. Born in Brindisi, in 1979, he studied Fashion Design in Milan, at Istituto Marangoni where he started his career as menswear designer working for prestigious Italian and European fashion brands. In 2019, driven by the desire to express himself through new creative means, he approached the ceramics world at Officine Saffi, where he explored the traditional techniques of Italian artistic craftsmanship. This experience brought to life his first design projects. His approach doesn’t follow the traditional modeling, but starts from a bespoke design study built for the process and realization of each piece. The most recent years have become an opportunity for observation of the urban space and a creative exercise in translating visual reality into imaginary, and imaginary into artifact.

TU BI was founded in 2021 by Brindisi-born artist Ivan Tafuro. The project draws inspiration from Milano’s urban elements and decor, recreating sleek shapes through handmade glazed earthenware ceramic sculptures, and glazed metal lighting. TU BI’s aesthetic is bold, colorful, and in perfect harmony with the postmodern manifestations of the 1980s. The brand wants to influence the everyday life of its audience who will perceive each work differently, associating it with traditional signs such as a trident, letters of the alphabet, notes, and musical instruments up to spaceships. The name is a take on the pronunciation of the infinitive “to be”—symbolic of the Self as the highest form of artistic expression—and a play on the Italian word “tubi,” meaning tube-like or cylindrical.

Uma x Holloway Li /
"T4"

Designer: Holloway Li
Collaborators and others: Polkima Moulded Composites
Website: http://umaobjects.com
IG: @_hollowayli @uma.objects

Uma pushes the boundaries of fabrication and works collaboratively with designers to produce high quality, long lasting pieces. As a new furniture label, Uma has launched its first collection, the T4, designed by Holloway Li after several adventurous projects together. Holloway Li was founded by creative Interior Architect duo Alex Holloway and Na Li. The studio’s built work covers a diverse catalog covering retail spaces, hospitality, and select private homes.

For Alcova 2023, experimental London design studio Holloway Li and futuristic furniture brand Uma have teamed up to stage their T4 collection including the launch of a new edition. The installation will see Holloway Li and Uma’s collaborative retro futurist T4 chairs take up temporary residency for Alcova. Set amidst nature, the modular designs bloom in dialogue with one another, inviting visitors to retrace the optimism of the 90s. The playful curved seating takes its cues from molded composites used in the automotive industry whilst its retro palette and chubby silhouette nod to the youthful energy of design at the turn of the millennium whilst musing on its possibilities for the future.

Unknown Untitled /
"Project n°1: UU Tiles - Project n°2: UU Woodwork"

Designers: Sylvain Chasseriaux, Yun Li, Maxime Loiseau, François Rybarczyk
Website: https://unknown-untitled.com/en
IG: @unknown____untitled

“Unknown, Untitled” is a reference to the label that accompanies a piece of art rather than the notion of anonymity itself. The studio intends for its work to be perceived as a production unassociated with a title or author, devoid of antecedents, and unconcerned with the romantic ideals of its creator. The name also implies an acknowledged relationship between art and design, reinforcing the studio’s deep interest in exploring the matter.
Through close collaboration between its members and the contribution of their diverse perspectives, the studio is able to get rid of a certain degree of subjectivity while resisting the influence of fleeting contemporary trends. The design process often evolves into a quest for essentialism, wherein the studio strips away any superfluous details to reveal objects that feel timeless and durable, and by consequence somehow sustainable.

UU-TILE: Although trending topics in interior design revolve around mobility and flexibility, Tile takes another route, investigating opportunities to enhance sustainability and the optimum integration of functions within a space. The protective and decorative functions of the ceramic tile are enlivened by additional functionalities: while the lighting layout, electrical accesses, and flows are integrated into the building itself, these tiles serve as a physical interface between the architecture and the living space, blurring the lines between object and space.
WOODWORK is a collection of furniture rooted in elementary volumes and basic structures. The collection aims to be discreetly efficient on multiple levels: from the manufacturing process and assembly, to the way in which pieces are combined. These rudimentary yet singular objects express their intent at first sight, and upon second read inform of the care and reason behind their details.

VOLUMEUNO X GIO TIROTTO /
"A place to inhabit"

Designer: Gio Tirotto
Collaborators and others: Technical Partner : FENIX® @fenixforinteriors, FBS Profilati @fbsprofilati Ph: Matilde Bettati @mathbett
Website: http://volumeuno.it/
IG: @volumeuno_official @giotirotto

Volumeuno
design, cucina, tu
volumeuno uno è un nuovo brand italiano che produce cucine.
volumeuno propone un nuovo modo di intendere l’abitare contemporaneo
attraverso la ricerca, il design e la semplicità.

“a place to inhabit” design, spatial transformism, cool materials.
The installation provides continuous live performances that focus on the theatricalization of living.
We believe it’s not contemporary to talk about rooms, even less kitchens, living rooms or anything like that, today living takes place within a volume customized to the spatial, bodily, and character needs of the individual.
VOLUMEUNO tells itself through a continuous function reshuffling, a perpetual performance in which the inhabitant and the guest interact through what’s happening at that moment: a music production, a business meeting, a cocktail course, a shared reading, or a yoga session.

Wang Yichu /
"Amadeus Family"

Designer: Wang Yichu
Website: https://wangyichuwangyichu.cargo.site/
IG: @wangyichuwangyichu @yichu__charlei

Wang Yichu (b.2000) is a designer and artist who investigates materials in various narrative contexts with innovative techniques to establish a unique design language. My research interest lies in the transformation of materials using advanced fabrication methodologies and techniques. I hope to expand the potentiality of overlooked and mundane elements of urban infrastructures. I aim to explore the duality of materials, reshaping materials to present traits contrasting their nature.

The Amadeus Family was deeply influenced and inspired by Mozart's Opera. Mozart's technique of composing with primary notes to create rich imagery through his music inspired me to transform mundane material into a captivating piece. Even though the singspiel's introduction consists of only a few repeating arpeggio notes, it provides a spectacular sound and visual effect that can almost be comparable to carnival fireworks. While constructing the Amadeus chair, I kept playing Mozart's opera "Die Entführung aus dem Serail K. 384; (The Abduction from the Seraglio) ", hoping to integrate its charm into my work. Mozart's zeal for music and miraculous talent, which were embedded in his compositions, also inspired me on a spiritual level to translate abstract impetus into a flamboyant design language.

WL CERAMICS and [ARRAY] /
"[ARRAY] X WL CERAMICS"

Designer: David Derksen
Collaborators and other credits: Other designers include Edward van Vliet, Lex Pott, Jonas Lutz, Sari Rikken
Website: https://www.wl-ceramics.com | https://www.array-lighting.com
IG: @wl_ceramics | @arraylighting | @davidderksendesign


WL CERAMICS is a family run company based in Jingdezhen, China, the birthplace of porcelain manufacturing. While it has mastered many manufacturing techniques, it specialize in large wheel-thrown objects such as vases, planters, and ceramic furniture. Together with its clients, it designs and develops unique products. [ARRAY] is a personal collection of decorative and functional lighting. It is a collection that has been curated, designed, and developed by David Derksen. Each fixture has been designed and developed with dedication and assembled in the studio in Rotterdam or at local partners.

At Alcova 2023, WL CERAMICS and [ARRAY] lighting will present their collections together in several in and outdoor settings. Whereas the lighting collection of [ARRAY] has been designed by David Derksen, the monumental porcelain collection of WL CERAMICS also contains works of other international designers such as Edward van Vliet, Lex Pott, Jonas Lutz, and Sari Rikken. Both collections include objects for the indoor as well as outdoor. The exhibition will showcase innovative lighting designs and contemporary large porcelain objects in different compositions.

Xaver Kuster /
"A Lamp Fur You"

IG: @xaver1000

Xaver Kuster is a Designer and Artist based in Vienna. In his work he moves between sculptural and functional Design, always trying to experiment with new shapes and materials.

Light is having a big emotional impact on us. Cold light can makes us feel awake, energetic, but also discomfortable, whereas warm light can makes us feel warm, comfortable and welcome. But what about the lamp itself? Often designer lamps are very stripped down, raw, and cold objects. The idea behind the Lamp Fur You was to create an object that, besides the warm light, makes us feel comfortable with its presence in the room. It feels familiar, keeps us company and calms us when we stroke it`s fluffy fur. Some say it might be humans best friend.

Yuma Kano + Sho Ota /
"TOUCH WOOD"

Sponsors: Cultuur Eindhoven
Website: https://yumakano.com | https://shootadesign.com
IG: @yumakano | @shoo_ohta

Yuma Kano based in Japan/Tokyo and Sho Ota based in Netherlands/Eindhoven are presenting their exhibition, “TOUCH WOOD.” The common design technique of the two as designers working with the material “wood” is “collecting and cutting wood.” At this exhibition, they pursue expressions that cannot be achieved with mass production. They present their new works in which their respective expressive methods are mixed together as if they were dialoguing.