Event
What are we proposing?
We will address the extremely important theme of sustainable living and will focus on what we in the present can concretely do to align our home life and lifestyle with the crucial safeguarding of the resources of our planet. It's about behaving ethically, starting with our personal surroundings. This doesn't mean relinquishing beauty, comfort and conveniences, rather, it means taking on an attitude that is more critical and selective in the choice of objects and products for the home and for the rituals of home life.
What follows is a route along which small 'fragments' of domesticity are presented in an ecologically correct manner in which every single element – whether clothing, food, furniture, or object… – is the result of a process that starts from the raw material and carries through to the creation of the product, always taking its future reintegration into the chain of sustainability into account.
Participating in the foundation of these 'sustainable' fragments are companies whose 'mission' chooses respect for the environment as a priority – not as a façade, but in a substantial way – likewise, we expect the participation of young and creative designers who are moving in the same direction. A sure way to bring two realities together in order to 'work' towards a common ethical objective.
Exhibitors
BALLARINI – www.ballarini.it
Cookware in aluminium, stainless steel and copper, with non-stick coating, for home and professional use. Kitchen accessories. Marketing projects in cooperation with the most prestigious companies of the Italian gastronomic tradition. Ballarini is all of this and more. It is tradition, cookware culture, and passion for cooking. It is innovation and technological research. And it is strictly "Made in Italy". Presently, Ballarini, a brand that is renowned worldwide and a company with more than 120 years of experience, is celebrating its fifth generation of manufacturing. Ballarini aims to create value with the new culture of quality in cookware through a combination of competitiveness and sustainability, while paying attention to societal questions with its new projects that are respectful of our health and of the environment.
GMUND – www.gmund.com
Since 1829 the Gmund paper mill has produced attractive and creative fine papers that are appreciated by graphic designers all over the world. We have produced a directory of 30,000 types of paper for those customers who have chosen to respect the environment by using ecologically friendly paper on their stationery, brochures and mailings. The company is proud of the GMUND ECO CERTIFICATE, which stands for the high, self-imposed environmental standards that the paper mill has adopted.
It refers to the four resources involved in the paper industry: Water, purified with natural ozone; Raw Materials, all FSC certified; Waste, 99 % of which is recycled; Energy, up to 75 % of the power is self-produced by water and steam turbines, solar power and heat recovery. Gmund is proud to participate in Sparkling, ecologically correct', an event that links manufacturers and designers who are respectful of the environment. Gmund's commitment to protecting the environment goes back many generations and has been passed on to the present generation. Gmund is dedicated to constant improvements and to continued progressive thinking.
WEDGWOOD – www.wedgwood.com
For over 250 years Wedgwood has been the English Brand synonymous with excellence and design in the porcelain sector. Nature's Canvas is the new Wedgwood collection inspired by the beauty of natural materials that offers its owners the freedom to create a tabletop look that is minimal yet tactile, refined yet warm. An artful simplicity of form and texture only achieved through the most painstaking design. The natural textures, organic shapes and neutral tones of Nature's Canvas remind us of the link between plate and planet and are a clear response to the desire of an increasingly eco-sensitive consumer for products that reflect their values.
Nature's Canvas combines a handcrafted appearance, quality and awareness of the environment. The clay used is 100% natural; the slip is approximately 30% recycled slip mixed with 70% fresh slip; the slip poured out of the mould is reused in the next production; any waste materials are collected in order to prevent contamination of the natural environment. Uniting art with industry created from the earth's natural materials. Made in stoneware, the collection is available in four neutral tones and combines glazed and unglazed surfaces providing the natural, handcrafted feel.
ESSENT'IAL – www.essent-ial.com
The name alone says it all: clean and essential lines are what characterise Essent'ial collections, where every detail is skilfully handled and where the materials and the manufacturing are completely respectful of the environment. The pieces that make up the Essent'ial accessories and home furnishings collection originate in conscientious recycling of manufacturing discards and remnants of raw materials. And, to go along with the already well-known products in cellulosic fibre, rendered into various colours, Essent'ial has a new, unreleased project that will enter the scene at Sparkling, ecologically correct during Milan's Design Week. Just one hint about the new, still top-secret project: here the 'mission' will be to restore some dignity to common scraps of cloth, sewn with the same red thread used in the new 2010 collection. However, we'll just have to wait and see…
GLIX – glix@katamail.com
A single strip of fabric, folded in large pleats, creates a volume that wraps the body in a dynamic and versatile form. This is the essence of the project Teasing-strip, designed by GLIX for Sparkling, ecologically correct 2010, and which with refined and seductive aesthetics, synthesises the attitude of contemporary design for the research and elaboration into new relationships between our behaviour and the environment. The material used is natural, organic; the fabric's folds design essential but sophisticated shapes that are revealed only by the body's form, and demonstrate the important link between the object and its use. The result is a reflection upon the relationship between gesture and its immediate creative potential, and how this can have an impact upon the environment.
ILARIA INNOCENTI – www.ilariai.com
Ilaria Innocenti, a graduate of Milan's Istituto Europeo di Design, has been an interior designer since 2005, working on residential, commercial, and public spaces, while specialising in the creation of temporary installations. Recently, she has also designed and produced collections of household objects. To coincide with the 2010 Fuorisalone, Ilaria will unveil "Tp," a collection of lamb's wool carpets.
hese carpets are thoroughly natural and ecologically sustainable. They are woven on handlooms, and are hand-knotted, according to traditional Sardinian craftwork techniques. In Ilaria's collection, ancient artisan tradition "wears" today's sensitivity. The design is exceedingly up-to-date. Each decoration derives from a study of objects, textures, and traces of ideas, which are brought together in a hand-drawn collage. Cut out and overlaid, each collage forges the plot of a short story. Ilaria, experimenting with this language for years, has now applied it to carpets, construing the carpet as an element around which an intimate household ambience is built.
VIFRA – www.vifra.com
Vifra is a plastic moulding company. Vifra's versatile production process can be applied to many different sectors: taps and fittings, cosmetics, perfumery, precision mechanics… In line with this philosophy, Vifra offers services ranging from planning to prototype production, serigraph, chroming, assembly, to the packaging and consignment of the final product. Vifra believes in the great potential offered in the field of plastic moulding; for this reason Vifra continually invests in the development of its know-how and in the most modern technologies.
The company realises both internal projects and those on behalf of third parties, collaborating with important firms in Italy and abroad. Why is Vifra at Sparkling, ecologically correct? Because we believe that the evolution of "production" can only take place with respect for the environment, and through real projects like those that Vifra has been carrying on for years with enthusiasm and creative experimentation. Our alliance with C73 is an example of the firm's ecological commitment, in a transversal way, through the interpretation of transforming manufacturing discards into unique objects of design.
PROGETTO C73 – www.c73.it
Carola Pasquino, a tailor's daughter, grew up surrounded by fabrics, threads and buttons. Her architectural studies at university in Genoa opened up her mind: she learned to combine beauty, in the form of a rational, useful object with a humanistic and culturally based vision of the product itself. Her studies looked towards nature, and she graduated with a thesis on English landscape architecture. She then collaborated with companies in Biella's textile industry, where she had the opportunity to study high quality and innovative yarns peculiar to Biella.
Architects, as we know, have their own particular method of lateral thinking and are used to thinking outside of the box, and in fact, Pasquino doesn't think that yarn and thread should only be woven into fabrics. Progetto C73 was born in the historically important context of Italian fabric production, in a land that is rich in nature, perfumes and colours. C73's accessories render yarns precious. They are intertwined and knotted with craft and patience, creating one-offs and limited editions where the natural materials are mixed together with various discarded elements. The collaboration with Vifra allows C73's creativity to see plastic industrial scraps as a resource that can be transformed into unique objects.
FORDESIGNFOR – www.fordesignfor.it
Is a fresh new name on the international design scene with a host of original, new ideas ranging from industrial design to graphic creations. FordesignFor is Luca Gnizio & Giuseppe Rosiello, two young Milanese designers proposing their personal vision of design. Thanks to continual research into new and exciting shapes, forms and materials, and inspired by a contemporary vision of lifestyles, FordesignFor projects offer many creative combinations of different materials, influenced by both the natural and the urban worlds, with particular attention paid to giving new life to recycled objects in ways you would never imagine possible! Above all, FordesignFor strives to use recycled materials and clean energy from renewable sources such as wind power and solar energy.
Deeply convinced that it is imperative to think of the world with a greener mentality and that everyone, in their own small way and by their own small means, can contribute to spreading the green message, FordesignFor is ready to say yes! to Sparkling, ecologically correct. The principle underlying FordesignFor's projects is the firm belief that a green mentality can give new life to materials that appear to be at the end of their life cycle. As a matter of fact, FordesignFor's projects have been realised thanks to an eco-friendly re-use of old pipes, asphalt and fans that have been collected from landfills and the surrounding urban environment.
CHARACTER – www.character.fi
The Finnish company Character is on a mission to save dismantled logos and signs. These signs, which have been part of the cityscape for years, or even decades, are given a new life by Character. The company chooses signs with letters and logos that have personality, they replace the old neon tubes with LED's, and check that they are functional. Images of the refurbished signs are placed on their website so that customers can find their own initials. Customers are delighted to personalise their initials with different colours and tones. The "new" illuminated object can be used as decoration or as ambient light, inside or outside. The possibilities are limitless: as lighting for a balcony, as sculpture in an office reception, as a piece of art in the garden, or as a nightlight in a child's room… Their uniqueness, and their artisanal quality make each piece totally one-of-a-kind.
USEDESIGN – www.usedesign.it
«If only had the used things eyes to see, memory to keep, and especially voice to speak… Lost in my thoughts I realize how frail the human mind is, subjected to a morbid curiosity and at the same time totally dominated by that proper instinct that drives us to madness. Escaping is my design. Escaping from all this, resignation to not understanding, not knowing, not satisfying our own instincts. My design is a funeral. With stuccos, waxes and paints I try to cover, as long as possible, the past of the objects, burying them under a layer of glamour and kitsch». This is how Luca Scarpellini, ex-busker, ex-student of Mechanical Engineering then graduated at Accademy of Fine Arts, describes his work that brings him to search the potential and the possibilities of discarded and unused material. An infinite potential, as he says, because the geometric industrial shapes from the last fifty years, magically interact like notes on a musical score.
Partners
CASA NATURALE – www.casanaturale.info
Casa Naturale celebrates its fifth anniversary on the newsstand by becoming a monthly, and with many new topics to propose to its readers through reports, columns and reportages in Italy and abroad. Environmental sustainability isn't just an idea anymore, it's a very attainable lifestyle; we need only to become more responsible by orienting our choices of products and services in an ethical way. Casa Naturale helps by suggesting "virtuous" choices, often easy to apply, for saving energy at home by using low-impact materials and systems, and when making purchases, by opting for furniture made of environmentally certified or recycled wood, natural textiles, organic food, or by choosing eco-tourist itineraries that are environmentally sustainable.
Casa Naturale invites readers into the world of renewable resources by covering architectural solutions that are original, avant-garde and affordable that illustrate the most important aim of all: to have a significant effect on domestic energy consumption and to limit the ecological footprint of our daily lives. Casa Naturale reports on environmental, cultural and social damages to our planet, and suggests possible and practical alternatives thanks to the input of influential personalities from the worlds of science, medicine and culture.
MIXDESIGN – www.mixdesign.it
Since Monday March 15 is online the new portal www.mixdesign.it, the new editorial initiative by Mediacap. It is proposed as a 360° facing on the boundless and multi-thematic universe of design. The name, characterized by the concept of "mix" stresses the changing, contaminated, with no cross border nature of contemporary design. Big space for the new generation of creativity and for the new horizons of technological research. Available to visitors there is a forum and a section devoted to original projects with high experimental value.
Director: Gianluca Sgalippa (Milan, 1966) graduated in Architecture at the Polytechnic of Milan, where he earned a Ph.D. in Industrial Design Research. As a freelance, he is active in various small scale fields of design. As a freelance teacher, he collaborates with the most prestigious design schools in Milan: the Faculty of Design of Polytechnic, Academy of Brera, IED, Istituto Marangoni and NABA. He also is a journalist, a design writer and critic. Since 2003 he is director of the magazine "BagnoDesign" (Tecniche Nuove). In 2002, he publics Quando il prodotto diventa luogo, in 2006 Post-bagno and, in 2008, Trans-Design. He managed numerous initiatives related to the culture of design.
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