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Milan 2013: Spazio Rossana Orlandi

If Ventura Lambrate was my favorite space at Milan Design Week last year (and again this year!), my favorite new discovery was definitely Spazio Rossana Orlandi – especially as I even spotted the lady herself.

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The space has a buzzy cafe culture ambience and there’s a sense that something different is always happening here.

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A little exploration led me to the Bala Side Tables by Jaime Hayon – I love the luxurious copper and marble set against the pitted unfinished wall behind.

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Scholten and Baijings’ collaboration with Hay seems to me like a match made in neon geometric heaven, and this display of their work did nothing to convince me otherwise.

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Their color palette is just perfect – and including open catalogues to show work too big to fit within this display was a clever use of space.

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I had already heard good things on the grapevine about School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s whatnot presence at Milan, so I was excited to see their stand. I loved A Moment, Jay Hyun Kim’s 55-minute timer, which reveals different colors as it is unfolded.

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New Rule by Allon Libermann caught my eye too – the design plays on the way we move our fingers along rulers when counting measurements.

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Curro Claret’s T300 is a single piece of metal that enables the user to construct a stool from found materials. The project started life as an initiative to help people at risk of social exclusion to make their own furniture and has since expanded to include many people in difficult situations. This is the first time the crucial metal piece has been available for sale.

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Face-o-mat was one of the highlights of Milan Design Week for me. Post $5 of special Face-o-mat currency through the slot in the front, adjust the dials, and wait for your portrait.

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On the other side, somewhat Wizard of Oz style, Tobias Gutmann responds to your chosen settings and paints your portrait by hand…

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…with fabulous results! (Thank you so much to these two lovely ladies for posing for a photo for me!)

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I first spotted Karimoku New Standard at Maison et Objet and particularly liked this range by Scholten and Baijings. Karimoku is a traditional Japanese furniture company and the New Standard is their new contemporary venture.

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Future Primitives by Muller Van Severen was included in the London Design Museum’s Designs of the Year exhibition, so it was great to see it exhibited here – and in Ventura Lambrate – too.

And just in case we hadn’t quite satisfied our Jaime Hayon craving, there was a little more tucked away in the basement:

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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.