D.O.S., the first widespread district of design, becomes an innovative start-up and for the Milan Design Week 2021 comes back presenting “ID: all the Design Identities”

After the success of last October, which led to over 60000 interactions, in collaboration with WeAreYou and YouParti, proposes a new exhibition that will allow to “see the invisible”, combining classic exhibitions with experiences in Augmented Reality (AR).

ID aims to overcome traditional boundaries, through a widespread exhibition that relates the physical and virtual world, amplifying the experience using new technologies, according to a perspective that does not deny or privilege the online or offline, proposing a #alline vision.

An exhibition that’s present, even if it isn’t visible: Activator Pixels

28 large blue squares, called “Activator Pixels ” and placed in the main areas of the city, will allow access to AR experiences by scanning the QRcode inside: sustainability and capillarity are the characteristics of an exhibition that does not involve physical objects but the fruition of experiences. Let’s DOS, Discover, Own, Share!

The projects developed by designers and firms in the field will be overlapped with the surrounding environment and can be browsed on smartphones through Instagram or Facebook, with the possibility of being saved, shared, and repositioned elsewhere, thus generating a new exhibition level.

The project runs on the border between the physical and digital worlds, in a hybrid dimension called “phygital” which is an experimental research ground for designers and companies. 

” In the wake of the pandemic, this approach, already experimented last October with considerable success, represents a new and innovative possibility for designers and brands to interact with the public and make their work known, even at a distance and using the potential of social networks to spread content-generating potential virality”, explain the promoters of the initiative Emilio Lonardo and Diego Longoni, pursuing the ambitious goal of using technology with attention to sustainability, following a #sustech trend.

Projects and brands on show include: Fortuny, a company that has been producing fabrics in Venice since 1907 and that for the occasion has thought up an AR experience that will fill the Biblioteca degli Alberi in the Isola neighborhood with butterflies whose wings tell of the wide range of patterns available in the brand’s collection; Margherita Ferrara – Mondo Fluttuante with her Tribal Pop style masks and sculptures; Mr. Wéi kē, a Chinese collective that pays homage to Vico Magistretti with the object ARtollo, positioning it in front of the entrance to the Milan Triennale where an exhibition on the Milanese master is underway; Anita Zampaglione presents AZ17#3, an armchair with sophisticated geometries and different chromatic and material combinations.

Talent Comes Naturally by RedBull @ Ride Milano

Innate, unique, natural. Talent is a precious good, and the Organics Talents project was born to celebrate it. In the spaces of RIDE, in Via Valenza 2, the 13 talents selected as a result of the collaboration between RedBull and the organizers of ID will be unveiled, through phygital modalities.

ID X Combo

The Combo Milano hostel in Ripa di Porta Ticinese 83 will host a collective exhibition, astride analog and digital, with a focus dedicated to innovation, through a selection of under 35 designers. The physical exhibition, curated by Caterina Capelli, will be augmented by digital content accessible through the use of tags, QRcode and Nfc.

The connection between the physical exhibition and the multimedia contents, which are always online but can also be activated on-site, represents an innovative way that puts Combo in the position of a hub able to have an eye on new trends and new talents of emerging and experimental design, and that allows young designers, for the first time on display with their products and prototypes, to reach visibility that goes beyond the classic static exhibition.

Among the projects featured in the exhibition: Jongha Choi with De-Dimension, a series of folding furniture that when closed represents themselves in an axonometric view; Eunice Choi proposes Sea Squish, a collection of objects that reimagine elements for separating lines at store checkouts, made of molten glass and silicone and inspired by the aposematic characteristics of deep-sea animals that work to simultaneously warn and repel predators; PopUP Furniture by Jonas Finkeldei and Nick Potter is a foldable and versatile piece of furniture that can be transformed into a stool, a lounger or a table; ENNE, designed by Alessandra Galli, is a ladder, an iconic product by definition, to which a feature has been added: the possibility of being closed reducing a bulky object to a few centimeters of thickness.

ID X nhow hotel Milano

The entrance hall of nhow Milano (Via Tortona, 35) will host an exhibition of works that have distinguished themselves for an experimental approach to the project: the exhibition presents designers and studios selected by RDG collective (Alberto Ghirardello, Fabrizio De Paolis, Milo Mussini) with the intention of creating a focal point for professionals and curious people who want to deal with realities and projects born from the desire to develop objects with an iconic value, without forgetting the concepts of sustainability and knowledge of materials.

The installation, realized in collaboration with Macevi 1928, a leading company in the production of urban furniture and customized concrete products, is grafted into the spaces of the hotel through material pixels on which designers intervene with their objects, creating islands within the eclectic and multicolor space of nhow Milano.

Among the selected designers: Greta Dalessandro with BioFan, a fan, designed in duo with the same Alberto Ghirardello and that allows a concrete and intuitive use of DIY bioplastics with the help of 3D printing;

Alessandro Gorla – Studio Algoritmo proposes Selce, a single-material (porcelain) and one-piece lemon squeezer, produced with a casting mold that fully performs its function thanks to the irregular facets present on the external volume of the object; MAGMA, designed by Ilaria Marelli, is a table of the COOK series, an experimental project for the production of objects in various series inspired by the world of cooking;

Atto proposes Vuoto, a publication designed in collaboration with the architects’ collective Orizzontale, a transmedia public space created to host collective investigations on the city as an unstable system, public reflections on unpredictability as a paradigm, production of physical and cognitive landscapes based on the idea of the unexpected, research of non-deterministic ways of intervening on the urban; 

Simone Fanciullacci proposes, for Edizione Limitata, Prisma N01, a mirror that plays with the idea of composition and is presented as a collage of different materials and surfaces, a dialogue made of light and reflections;

Sovrappensiero with Bench, for Rampinelli Edizioni, works on archetypal forms, highlighting the idea of surface and plate, an element at the base of metalwork, increasing the perspective effect of the object through a grid texture.

Bench at Dawn

A bench that echoes the proportions of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man will be positioned in front of Castello Sforzesco.  Made of solid stone, the one on display during Milan Design Week will be the first Bench at Dawn, a project that aims to place in the cities a series of benches to remind the attitude of travelers who seek rest and mental refreshment in places of particular beauty.

Conceived by a group of entrepreneurs from Verona, in synergy with the organizers of ID and Plant For The Planet Italia, the project will combine the physical display of the bench with a “guerrilla mARkering” campaign that will allow those who will visualize the corresponding Instagram filter to place the object in their own places of beauty, thus obtaining information on the point of view of the city’s inhabitants.

Milan Icons Re-Opening

Opening of the new Milan Icons store in Via Vincenzo Monti, 2. The occasion will be used to talk about the store, the new brands on sale and the collaboration with D.O.S. Design Open Spaces s.r.l. that allowed the success of the initiative. The partnership with Weart, a pioneering start-up in the development of haptic technologies, will also be presented.

Valore Verde @ Brera

The dOT event, organized by VG Crea & partners in Piazza San Marco 2, on Milan Design Week 2021, aims to give particular emphasis to the outdoor companies of furniture, coverings, flooring and lighting.

For the occasion Valore Verde, in charge of the general layout, presents its own reality as a network of professionals in the sector, through phygital experiences able to make natural elements interactive, capable of dialoguing with personal technological devices, such as smartphones and tablets.