Milano, Italy
Mario Cucinella Architects have installed a large landscape block, named Design by Nature, to discuss the vital aspects of circular economy and reuse regarding ethics, circularity, domestic space, participatory architecture, and urban regeneration at Milano Design Week 2022.
The project demonstrates how vegetable and animal waste, and waste generated by human beings – be it agricultural, industrial, or urban – is already being transformed into “something else,” into new raw materials that give a second and third life to the material being generated.
This means not just plastic bottles, waste from shoe making and furnishing processes, and sun awnings but the creation of new fabrics for the fashion and textile worlds; from coffee to floor coverings.
Design with Nature proves that we can come up with a different way of building and creating products in conjunction with nature, without continuing to consume raw materials but by triggering virtuous ecological behaviors.
The installation spans a large area that turns both into a landscape and a space for dialogue, a refuge for discussion, sharing, reading, and reflecting.
The area includes two large tables, measuring 68 meters by 22 meters, and narrate the materials for the ecological transition and the city.
It represents a space around which people can gather “because, after the events of the last couple of years, we’ve rediscovered the value of sociality, which needs to forge a new equilibrium with our surroundings – in terms of space and available resources,” says the office.
A series of totems provides visitors with descriptions of the natural and not-so-natural materials, studied by MCA with the scientific support of Professor Ingrid Paoletti of the Milan Polytechnic University.
The installation also includes texts and graphics indicating the origin, the transformation and processing stages, the use, and the finished product, narrating the new life of the material.
The artwork by Accurat reprises the theme of sustainability, while the video mapping by Zeranta will present “the city as a mine” to the public.
Project: Design with Nature
Architects: Mario Cucinella Architects
Photographers: Giovanni De Sandre
