Tortona Design Week presents the IN-OUT project

The IN-OUT project marks a new start in the name of sustainability and innovation.

Expectations are growing for the supersalone, the special September event of Salone del Mobile in Milan: an important moment for relaunching the entire sector of reference and an opportunity for its many fans to breathe an air of normality again, walking through exhibition pavilions and visiting the Fuorisalone.

The appointment you won’t want to miss, scheduled from September 4 to 10, will also animate the famous area of via Tortona, thanks to Tortona Design Week.

For the occasion, Torneria Tortona and Tortona Locations, which are among the promoters and organizers of the event, developed IN – OUT, perception of sustainability, a project that interprets change as an opportunity to initiate collective growth in the name of sustainability and innovation. 

In a year in which everything has changed and everyday life has adopted different forms and tempos, in a constantly evolving “IN – OUT”, it is essential to wonder about the present and future. Precisely for this reason the concept developed for the Tortona Design Week 2021 aims to reconcile the perception of the inner world with the outer one, always keeping a constant focus on the sustainability of the elements, concepts, and daily life. 

The exhibitions will celebrate design as a promoter of innovation, the result of a continuous search to reconcile the interaction between things, people, and spaces (both indoors and out) in an intelligent and sustainable way and with numerous recurring values, including a commitment to use innovative materials and artificial intelligence and have respect for the environment through the research and development of a system for an increasingly circular economy.

Many important companies in Italy and abroad have decided to join the project such as Haier, Candy and Hoover, APIMA and AICEP Portugal Global; Nitto; ICONA Design Group; Lechler – ColorDesign®; Sense – immaterial Reality; Officina 14; Zip Zone Events; Materioteca®; Tiziana Pistoni; and Studio.traccia., which is an indication of the importance of the topic and the shared desire to build a more conscious and responsible future for our well-being and that of our environment.

To further enhance the area of Via Tortona, the September date will be the first step towards creating The Roundabout: design with nature, a project in which Tortona Design Week collaborated with Domus Academy to launch a contest for Domus Academy students attending Masters courses in Interior & Living Design, Urban Vision & Architectural Design, Interaction Design and Service Design.

With the valuable contribution of the sponsors Sense – Immaterial Reality and Urbo.style, the students were asked to design a virtual and physical installation (which will be produced for Salone del Mobile 2022), involving the roundabout of Largo delle Culture, one of the symbols of Tortona Design Week, rethought in an ecological and sustainable way and with an eye on the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games. 

In Superstudio Più, Haier, Candy, and Hoover, among the world’s most famous brands of home appliances, will invite viewers to rethink their lifestyle at home.

Haier will launch its own idea of the Smart Home, the “Haier Home of the future” based on Artificial Intelligence, which will be open to the public with tours for small groups. For about 15 minutes, people will have the chance to experience a simulation of a fully interconnected house with a complete ecosystem of appliances and connected solutions to deal with problems and situations typical of everyday life.

Candy will present Snap & Do – Connections make the difference, an installation designed to show how Candy appliances are able to offer an intelligent and easy-to-use solution through image recognition.

Performance and Connectivity for a healthier place to live will be Hoover’s showcase for the launch of H-ABITAT, the set of interconnected products that look after the health and well-being of the family in the home, reflecting the values and mission of the brand.

Promoted by APIMA and AICEP Portugal Global, the exhibition “Made in Portugal, naturally at Tortona Design Week” aims to promote the tradition, savoir-faire, quality, and unique design of Portuguese products and companies. The exhibition with a strong focus on craftsmanship and sustainability will bring the innovation, uniqueness, and a high degree of customization that distinguishes Portuguese brands in different sectors of the home area such as furniture, lighting, ceramics, cutlery, and home textiles.

Also present among top international brands will be Nitto, the Japanese manufacturer of high-performance materials that with Search for Light will offer a glimpse into the future with a luminous expression through a magical labyrinth designed by Kaoru Mende, an internationally renowned architectural lighting designer, to inspire creativity and imagination.

The installation allows visitors to discover RAYCREA, the latest light control technology developed by Nitto. Faithful to the slogan that animates the company “Innovation for Customers”, RAYCREA allows new forms of expression through light and opens up new possibilities in the field of surface lighting.

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Proposing a path inspired by Leonardo’s interpretation of the concept of design is ICONA Design Group, a design firm with strong international momentum, which will set up Designing the future, an exhibition itinerary containing a selection of the most innovative creations in the automotive, industrial, and product design fields.

From the first concept car with completely autonomous driving to the sanitizing coin tray and to the necklace that allows you to breathe crisp, clean air like after a storm; from multifunction smart-charging stations to the technological baobab that produces drinking water wherever it is lacking: these are just some of the visionary works created by ICONA Design Group that the Fuorisalone public will be able to discover. 

Lechler has been producing paints since 1858 and has been promoting the culture of color for decades. Through the Color Design® concept Lechler presents “The Way of Accent” – The timeless collection for timeless spaces which develops four proposals inspired by the eternal colors of quartz and agates. The streaks of geodes reveal accents and colors on neutral schemes that go back millions of years to recreate the multiplicity of mineral colors in rooms.

Sense immaterial Reality, an ‘innovation company’ specialized in Immaterial Reality, will digitally present Sense Surfaces, the intangible catalog designed for companies and professionals in the furniture, design, and surfaces sectors. With Sense Surfaces, the sample becomes sustainable in all of its life stages, from a reduction of its production to the shipping and disposal of the material, thus creating a virtuous circle that respects the environment.

For this year’s edition, Officina 14 proposes a format of new designers and emerging brands who will exhibit in the old factory now transformed into a functional and multipurpose space, inside a courtyard with large windows framed by the thick foliage of Boston vines.

Furthermore, for its fourth edition, Zip Zone Events, the original and innovative event format created by Alessandra Stretti, has chosen to be present in three specially designed locations with an exhibition dedicated to projects in the fields of Design, Art, and Fashion. 

Zip Zone Events will then host Fuori di design, a collective exhibition of emerging designers with innovative products, promoted by Materioteca®, which in 2021 has reached its ninth edition. The leitmotif this year will be The Plastic Renaissance, with a series of examples of recycling systems and innovations that favor their development.

By virtue of the theme, the designers of participating companies such as Cycled, Direct3D, Krill Design, Tekoa Milano, TrialSystem® and Wayfordesign will demonstrate how to remodel and add value to humble materials, turning them into valuable products.

 Among the many novelties, Dadaist pop artist Tiziana Pistoni will present at Tortona Design Week the collection Works to exhibit and to experience: an emotional experience linked to a need for beauty. Her creations were born thinking of the female world “as the center of the universe” and “social affirmation”.

For this reason, their particular structure combines art and design in a revolutionary new form, through the use of recycled materials tied to the concept of sustainability and protection of the earth.

Base will host Studio.traccia, a multidisciplinary studio with a focus on architecture and design, with Tabula [non] rasa, an installation that simultaneously reflects on two principles: on the one hand, the idea of architecture and design that are more aware of their impact, while on the other hand, an uncontrolled production of food waste which has an even greater social, economic and environmental impact.

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