Design with Nature

Design with Nature therefore explores the themes of circular economy and reuse, starting with the idea that cities could be possible “reserves” of the future, where most of the raw materials used in construction could be sourced.

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 behaviours.

The installation channels three themes: ecological transition, the home as the first urban building block and the city as a mine, ranging over a large area that turns into both a landscape and a space for dialogue, a refuge for discussion, sharing, reading, and reflecting.

Two large tables, 68x22m over 1,400 sqm, narrate the materials for the ecological transition and the city and represent 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). A new, fundamental and crucial friendship with nature.

Just as everything that makes up nature changes, has more than one function and more than one life, the same is true of the components of Design with Nature, an assemblage of forms and functions that will find new lives and new destinations: a small library for a school, a classroom, a chair for a public space, a table for a laboratory and more.

Two large tables, 68x22m over 1,400 sqm, narrate the materials for the ecological transition and the city and represent 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). A new, fundamental and crucial friendship with nature.

Just as everything that makes up nature changes, has more than one function and more than one life, the same is true of the components of Design with Nature, an assemblage of forms and functions that will find new lives and new destinations: a small library for a school, a classroom, a chair for a public space, a table for a laboratory and more.

The materials in this installation derive from natural supply chains – demonstrating that ecological transition is already ongoing and that businesses can be the catalysts of this change – or from waste products upcycled and recycled. Cities are rich fonts of the latter, veritable reserves of resources and materials recoverable through circular processes.

The materials in this installation derive from natural supply chains – demonstrating that ecological transition is already ongoing and that businesses can be the catalysts of this change – or from waste products upcycled and recycled. Cities are rich fonts of the latter, veritable reserves of resources and materials recoverable through circular processes.

The project thus 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; from the skin and peel of fruit to leather; from mycelium to insulating panels – just to mention some of the new materials on show.

The project thus 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; from the skin and peel of fruit to leather; from mycelium to insulating panels – just to mention some of the new materials on show.