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Milan 2013: Brera Design District

The Brera Design District is another key part of Milan Design Week and this year was host to Lee Broom’s Crystal Bulb Shop, Patricia Urquiola’s Revolving Room for Moroso, Edit by designjunction and Oki Sato’s installation for Caesarstone.

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Everybody’s favorite British designer (because he’s just so lovely!) Lee Broom brought a touch of London to Milan, with his Crystal Bulb Shop – a ‘general store’ complete with weighing scales, mahogany counter and shop keeper.

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New for Milan, Lee launched a frosted version of the bulb, a chandelier and table light – expanding the Crystal Bulb range. And the exciting news is the Crystal Bulb Shop will stay open at Spazio Pontaccio until the end of May.

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The Milano Design Award 2013 for “Best Exhibition Project” was awarded to Patricia Urquiola’s installation “The Revolving Room” at the Moroso Showroom in via Pontaccio. A series of panels covered in brightly colored upholstery fabrics surrounded the space and slowly turned through 360 degrees to reveal the new collection for Kvadrat.

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Edit by designjunction was a new event for 2013 comprising a small selection of global design brands exhibited in the striking Pelota Jaialai venue.

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One of my favorite pieces was the Vitrina small sideboard by Hierve Diseñeria for Case Furniture, inspired by old-fashioned shop-keepers’ counters. I just love the orange!

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Another product that caught my eye was this ‘dipped’ bench from Ercol – another fabulous color applied in a contemporary style.

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The ‘Transformed’ stacking vessels are designed by Pia Wustenberg, one half of brother and sister design team Utopia and Utility. Their design ethos is: “that everything that deserves to be made, deserves to be made well. From the process to the finished objects, our motivation is to enrich life through beauty.”

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Swiss-Italian brand Feliz is not one I’d come across before and I loved these two TRE tables stacked on top of each other.

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Brera is where the Oki Sato Stone Garden installation for Caesarstone was – a collection of one-legged tables that lean on each other for stability forming a floor or garden. I was very lucky to have the chance to interview the man himself, and you can see what we talked about here.

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And we rounded off the day with an espresso in the garden of the legendary department store, Corso Como.

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Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author and, podcaster championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. She is also the founder and director of Making Design Circular, a program and membership community for designer-makers who want to join the circular economy. With 20 years' experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine and Monocle24 – as well as being Editor at Large for Design Milk. She is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and a podcast, Circular with Katie Treggiden.