Milan Furniture Fair 2012

With Milan fair over for another year, I thought I would post a little photo diary of my three day trip.

Week before the Fair

I did my usual checks to make sure that my hotel and flights were all booked and OK, and realised that I had booked both for a day too early, after a £60 change of flight charge I was back on track to fly out on Wednesday the 18th April.

With a 4.30am alarm call, the drive to Gatwick at that ungodly hour was uneventful and the airport was unusually efficient with very little queuing. I was lucky to the get one of the 3 front row seats with the extra leg room (I’m 6″5`), and for those who know me well, it will come as no surprise that I was asleep before some people had even boarded!!!

As we taxied on the runway, I was rudely awakened by a commotion at the back of the plane, someone had stood up or something, took very little notice and went happily back to sleep.

After a nice nap that lasted almost all the way to Milan, I awoke slightly better rested. On the bus from the plane to the terminal the Captain joined us, and he was duly interrogated about the person that had caused the commotion, and why he had to be restrained and handcuffed to the seat, with police waiting for him on the runway.  He gave very little away, except that this was the 6th time they had trying to deport him back to Italy, and the disturbance was his way of trying to be removed from the flight again.

Day 1

The Fair

For those who have never been or heard of Fuori Saloni (Milan Furniture Fair), it’s in the new Milan Fair Rho Pero and it`s one of the largest shows world-wide with 8 large pavilions for indoor exhibitions and 60,000m for outdoor exhibitions space. The Milan Fair is one of the most important in the international trade fair sectors, full of the best (and some of the worst) design products you will find anywhere. Here are my picks of the good, the bad and the downright ugly…

The Good

Desalto

Alternative

TAO design

Jab

Arper

45 Kilo

Dots design studio

deCafe

Lights made with used coffee beans

IED MAD+BCN

Herb garden made with an old bed frame and plastic bottles

Snaidero

MK

The Bad

…and The Ugly

Day 2

With the fair done, it`s now the time for the satellite shows dotted around Milan city. With 367 organised exhibitions from front rooms, to large warehouses not to mention all the other unofficial Street sides shows. The hippest area traditionally being Tortona.

Following another day walking for 12 hours: here’s the best of what I found.

Valcucine & DeMode

Full circle designed kitchen, made with mostly recycled materials. Once it has finished it’s life as a kitchen, Valcucine will collect it and recycle it, free of charge

Austrian Design

Agape

  L’Invisibile

The best thing at Milan, an almost invisible electrical door… it’s amazing when you see detail working so well…

Molteni & C

  Resident

Blackbody

Day 3

Woke up to painful calf muscles, following 2 solid days of pounding the fair and streets of Milan. Another good breakfast and back to Tortona to see the rest of what I missed the night before. It’s unfortunate that the area has lost its edge. The big companies have moved in and are trying to piggy back on the coolness of the previous years. But this is the best of what I found there.

Chimere

spoil your pets

Saazs

Glass which are a heaters or that change from clear to sandblasted. Neat.

With a new area having started in the north of Milan, I worked my way up to Via Ventura; this new frontier was full of the best that Milan can offer, and the coolest young designers around.

 

Wendy Maarten

Unusual Ferrari Car-Motorcycle

This vehicle was built by François Knorreck. Although his real job is technician in an hospital at Saint-Etienne in France, he spends all his free time to build, manufacture, modify and tune motorbikes. He spent 10000 hours of hard work, more than 10 years from time to time in the garage and about 15000 Euros to create this vehicle. Wonderful “hobby”!

 

WOODEN BIKE | BY WALDMEISTER

Produced in Freiburg, Germany at Waldmeister, this amazing bike was originally a concept built by designer Marcus Wallenberg Meyer. The prototype was so successful, it is now in production in a limited edition. It features a wooden frame, with fork and wheels of carbon, and truvativ crank, stem, and handlebars.

Fit for purpose

Fit for purpose; a phrase we bandy about quite often, generally to dismiss a beautiful object that is definitely a GNDN (Goes Nowhere Does Nothing). Looks great but is factually useless. But what about a beautiful object that is for the purpose of getting fit?

Occasionally, research into any given interiors project crosses over other fields of knowledge; nutrition, for example, in the designing of kitchens. Establishing dietary habits and advising on appliances to suit the client’s needs. Steam cooking retains more nutrients in the food, can thaw frozen foods, and may be preferable to a combination microwave option that pretty much nukes any nutrients altogether. We all know the importance of nutrition in our daily lives, and integration of this knowledge into kitchen design is becoming the norm. But the foremost in our minds, when associating with any process to achieve a healthier lifestyle is surely exercise. But in our world of considered design objects that reflect our personal tastes and aspirations, how do the modern home gyms shape up to our ever more discerning palette? Technogym serve up a great answer in the Kinesis Personal Fitness Equipment:

The Feng Shui minded will note the mirrors ability to draw in Chi energy, and I have to say that the system is pretty awesome. But you wouldn’t expect anything less from Antonio Citterio.

I like the wall bar option as well, giving added dimensions to stretching and mobility exercises. For those with the space, this system is pretty unbeatable. Talking about wall bars, this piece by Lucie Koldova combines form and function with simplicity:

Surprisingly, the trusty exercise bike features quite low in the design stakes. There are a few offerings out there, but none quite like this piece by Lamiflex; the Ciclotte stationary bicycle designed by Luca Scheippati (available at Skitsch- on show at Brompton Road during London Design Week). Full Marks Here:

But what if your space is somewhat more confined? Without the large apparatus, the ability to work on the large muscle groups, like pectoralis major (pecs or chest muscles) for example will inevitably require some form of bench. The average weights bench is more like a teenagers skateboard, adorned in lurid day-glow lettering and about as Zen as Duke Nukem at a Buddhist festival. So what is the answer for the more modest home gym bunny? Well this little kiddy, the Fitness Cube from Doymos is a good start:

It converts into a bench quicker than you can say ‘squat thrusts’, and you can attach handles to the cables poking out each side to give you 30 exercises with 8 resistance levels. And if the masculine black doesn’t grab you, the other choices may be of interest (faux zebra print anyone?). However, resistance machines with cables can be too constrictive in their rage of motion, and many personal trainers would argue that all you need for strength and power training modules in your exercise regime are free weights. With a set of dumbbells and a straight barbell you can isolate any muscle with ease, so to speak. And where to store all these items? Well, Gabriel Prero thinks in his Otto-Bench by Life Fitness:

As design objects go, the Doymos & Life Fitness offerings still come up a bit short. Especially when you compare them to this set of free weights in the form of the XO Philipe Starck dumbbells:

Let’s face it, you wouldn’t mind leaving those lying around the house. But for practicality of use, I love this set of interchangeable dumbbells that are compact enough to stow away easily, the Bowflex SelectTech adjustable dumbells:

Realistically though, most of us sport sore backs, aren’t interested in gaining muscle mass and suffer from a lack of time; symptomatic of the modern work ethic. In fact 70-85% of us will suffer some form of back pain at some point in our lives. The good news is this; that big resistance machine may not be necessary. The bad news is; you’ll be needing a gym ball and let’s face it, that exercise ball is often hospital blue, squeaky plastic and design ugly; you’d rather let the air out of it and re-pump it up than have it hang around the room like a bad smell. The focus of training for most of us should be on core strength and stability exercises, which help overcome the generic non-specific back pain that inflicts the vast majority. This is where the trusty gym ball comes into its own, and of course the odd well designed chair.

A prime example of which: the Saga by Bruno Mathsson. ‘The mechanism allows a range of movement thus reducing damaging compression on lumbar discs and thereby pain often caused by working in sedentary positions. The sculptured backrest is in firm contact with the lumbar region keeping the spine positioned in its natural S-shape and puts the user in an upright position.’ When it comes to backs, the motto should read; “Work hard; train hard”. Only by developing the core muscles that support the back will the sedentary nature of the issue be helped along.

Efua Baker (www.efuabaker.com), one of the best personal trainers around notes: “The best way to address the challenge of maintaining a programme over time is to integrate exercise into your daily life”. Personal trainers can help design programmes that are effective and use simple tools that can sit comfortably in our designed home. And Efua has come up with the ideal answer to keep that exercise ball fit for purpose; make it a little bit sexy:

door wedge – offcut

hangout by david zachary