PAFF PAFF by Finemateria – Liminal Spaces for Sensorial Rituals
An immersive installation by Finemateria for Park Associati, PAFF PAFF transforms wool into a sensory landscape – a soft space where rest becomes ritual, and the everyday is reimagined through warmth, stillness, and tactile presence.
Ludovica Proietti, journalist, design historian and curator, teaches in universities and curates events, always exploring projects with fresh, unconventional perspectives.
InstagramThe surreal pair of slippers designed by Finemateria inside the studio of Park Associati resemble the traces of giant, invisible beings – inhabitants we don’t see, but whose presence can be imagined. Oversized, soft, and ambiguous, these slippers mark the threshold of PAFF PAFF, the installation presented by Park Associati in their Milan studio during Design Week 2025.
PAFF PAFF – Liminal Spaces for Sensorial Rituals places wool at the centre of a symbolic and primordial environment. Through its warmth, texture, and scent, wool becomes the medium for a full-body, multi-sensory experience – something between a retreat, a pause, and a ritual space.
The project was designed by Finemateria at the invitation of Park Associati and developed in collaboration with cc-tapis and QuadroDesign. It has been part of the cultural program of Park Hub, curated by Costanza Nizzi, and on view from April 7 to 13 within the Porta Venezia Design District.
The installation invites visitors to step into a new kind of space – at once domestic and abstract, tactile and emotional. It encourages a temporary detachment from the hyperactivity of urban life, offering a slow, quiet rhythm instead. In this sense, PAFF PAFF reflects Finemateria’s ongoing research into wellbeing and ritual. Their previous projects – Vita Lenta (2022), Bedtime Stories (2023), and Bagno Diurno (2024) – all circle around the same theme: how design can support everyday gestures and moments of introspection, expanding the boundaries of what we consider domestic.
PAFF PAFF continues this investigation by offering a space for “sensorial inactivity”: a moment of regeneration that comes not from doing, but from being. Slipping into slippers becomes a meaningful gesture, an entry point into a more intimate, protected zone. The name PAFF PAFF itself recalls the soft, muffled sound of padded footsteps – a quiet onomatopoeia that evokes the feeling of sinking into something warm, familiar, and safe.
The installation is made up of two key components: modular sound panels and a series of low, lounge-like seats. The panels, reminiscent of screens or room dividers, create a circular, enclosed environment. The seats – deep and layered – invite the body to let go, to rest, to feel. Both are entirely upholstered in wool, tufted using a robotic loom developed by cc-tapis. This high-tech process allows for precision and complexity, producing unique tactile qualities in a short production time.
Balancing this softness are the structural elements in stainless steel, designed by QuadroDesign. Made using CNC machining, they introduce a contrasting language – technical, exact, industrial – which subtly grounds the installation in the world of contemporary manufacturing.
But it’s the atmosphere that defines PAFF PAFF: warm, muted, and immersive. Alongside the tactile and visual experience, sound plays a crucial role. Subtle vibrations, distant echoes, and soft rustling create a dreamlike acoustic environment, reinforcing the sense of stepping away – from noise, from urgency, from outside.
Like a nest, PAFF PAFF offers a temporary, transitional refuge. A liminal zone where the body slows down, the mind softens, and a deeper connection to one’s surroundings emerges. It’s not just an installation to observe, but one to inhabit – to feel, to breathe in, to remember what care and presence can look like in the form of space.
