Urban Light Walk

Project
Every year during the Milan Furniture Fair the exhibition “Texture and Material” is organized. The aim is to show the latest innovations. The design of last year edition was given to Polidesign, a consortium connected to Politecnico of Milan. The design team was made by university students guided by external architect.

Context
The Milan Furniture Fair is the most prestigious design fair in the world. In less then a week hundreds of events happen. Our location was situated in the heart of Zona Tortona: inside Superstudio Più. The furniture fair week is overwelmed with stimuli, hundreds events take place during these days.

Concept
The design process began from the idea of creating an urban walk. A diversified path along which we can discover the different materials as a small event. A balance of sounds, volumes and lights, that recreates the urban environment. We tried to build a space with qualities that could differentiate it from the usual fair environment.

Techniques
A 12m long tunnel was built to create a buffer zone between outside and inside.We lowered the lighting level in order to underline the material exhibited. This allowed us to differentiate from the usual visually dense fair environment.
The simple rectangular space where the exhibition was held, was divided into a fragmented path.Materials were not exhibited in a standard way.

My role
I was responsible of: lighting design of the whole exhibition which was realized in collaboration with ViaBizzuno; realization of a 4 min video introducing the design team visions on the city; design of the last area, “the garden”, involving two projected animations.

Results
The exhibition was realized with a short delay. Being part of a project with many actors involved (15 companies providing the materials, two communication agencies, constructor company, etc) has been a challenging experience. The overall feeling of the exhibition achieved to be different and quite unusual for the furniture fair standard.

Credits
Title: Urban Light Walk
Type:Exhibition design.
Year: 2006, during Milan Furniture Fair
Place:Milan, inside Superstudio Più
Design team: the project was developed by a collaboration of Polidesign, Recapito Milanese, Material ConneXion Milan.
My role: I was in charge of lighting and multimedia support of the exhibition.
People:Claudio La Viola- DAS Associati, Massimo Reccanello-project manager, Francesco Zurlo-Polidesign, Luisa Collina-Polidesign, Massimo Antinarelli-Polidesign, Giulia Gerosa-Polidesign, Mario Nanni-Viabizzuno, Alessandra Albini,Daria Baglieri,Gianantonio Bongiorno,Giacomo Butté,Marta Picco, Filippo Protasoni.Davide Ripamonti, Luigi Semeraro,Simone Simonelli,Luisa Vimercati
Data: 900 m2, one week exhibition
Status:project realized during the Milan Furniture Fair Week.