Editors' picks: Milan Design Week 2023

The world's most influential annual design showcase, Milan Design Week, returned from 17 to 23 April 2023. The enormous array of products on view represented industry-wide reflection and change: Some brands looked back at their long histories; others focused on bettering the future; many offered material innovations and artistic approaches to form.

The following highlights are but a taste of the global talent celebrated at 2023's Milan Design Week, with more to come.

At their Expect Death exhibition at Alcova - this year held at a disused abattoir outside of Milan - collaborators Prowl Studio and M4 Factory debuted their innovative Peel Chair. The biodegradable and compostable stackable chair is constructed from injection-moulded, corn-derived PLA and hemp fibres. The material is designed to be deconstructed and composted at the end of the product's life, exemplifying Expect Death's exploration of waste-management and circularity. The material-driven exhibition design immersed visitors in the chair's journey from birth to death.

Melbourne-based decorative lighting practice Volker Haug Studio showcased und Messing, a new series of lighting exploring various expressions of brass. Each piece in the range is hand-finished across a spectrum of brass tones from polished to dark bronze - an approach that focuses attention on the craft behind and individuality of each und Messing piece. In addition to creating brass metalwork, the studio is also experimenting with fibreglass.

Eponymous Italian lighting house Flos showcased several new products at Salone, including new innovations and evolutions of design classics. Exemplifying the latter is a refreshing update to the 1962 Taccia table lamp by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni. With its distinctive cup-shaped reflector and base reminiscent of an ancient grooved column, Taccia is internationally recognized as one of the most iconic symbols of Italian design. Updated over time with the most advanced LED technology, the Flos lamp is now offered in matt white. Flos is distributed in Australia by Euroluce.

Transcendence, a new collection by Melbourne-based furniture and lighting designer Ross Gardam, is a journey of discovery beyond the limits of the ordinary. Referencing geometric motifs, the moon, the ocean and the illusion of motion, Transcendence features a range of unique luminaire designs that are the result of experimentation with different glass techniques. Each piece, such as the Ceto Circlet chandelier, is a sculpture in its own right, revealing different personalities when light is added, reduced, or removed.

Kvadrat presents Paravent, its installation in collaboration with artist Ronan Bouroullec, to celebrate the launch of its latest textile collection. Inspired by Bouroullec's textural drawings, the Tero Outdoor, Sone, and Alle textile ranges feature patterns that recall the movement of Bouroullec's artworks: formed by the repetition of lines and created with coloured markers.

"Tero Outdoor embodies a new approach to discreet graphic expression and the world of textiles suitable for outdoor use," said Bouroullec.

Sone is a unicoloured upholstery textile featuring a subtle graphic design with intersecting fields of texture. Alle is a soft woollen upholstery with an organic line pattern, capturing the rich brushstrokes that characterize Ronan Bouroullec's drawings.

At the Era exhibition in the Brera Design District, award-winning Tasmanian designer Brodie Neill marks 10 years with 10 design pieces exploring its Made in Ratio collection. Presented as a single monolithic sculpture for viewers to explore, the exhibition features signature Made in Ratio chairs like Cowrie (2013) and Alpha (2015) alongside experimental prototype benches and stools. Some pieces have never been presented publicly, including Core (2020), which is inspired by the archetype of a pillar with two functional reliefs hewn into its stone cross-section, and Arc (2023), a bench that plays with the idea of surface tension with sweeping curves and contrasting smooth and rigid faces.

At its multidisciplinary Space Collection exhibition at Alcova, Swiss bathroom brand Laufen showcased sleek wet room furniture conceived together with Milan-based design studio NM3. Like Laufen, NM3 works with a deep appreciation for the past and future and is committed to material purity and geometric rationalist design. The collaborative collection comprises objects that are bent, folded and screwed from a single variety of stainless steel. The pieces evoke a conversation around livable spaces, particularly bathrooms: what they mean today and will mean tomorrow. An installation of two single, freestanding steel monoliths was brought to life by LED projections that created a dialogue between moving images and mirrored surfaces. Laufen is exclusively distributed through Reece in Australia.

Rakumba and Skeehan Studio unveiled their latest lighting collaboration, Plume. Inspired by the valleys and ridge lines of the Australian landscape, Plume is a sculptural table lamp that comprises two pressed aluminium leaves concealing an internal light source.

"We took a planar 2D material - sheet aluminium - and experimented with an array of processes to transform it. Through this deliberate open investigation, we unveiled unique moments and detailing that can be translated into design and functional inclusions," said Tom Skeehan of Skeehan Studio.

For this year's Milan Design Week, Muuto joined forces with Josephine Akvama Hoffmeyer and Elisa Ossino of H and O to create an immersive exhibition across their apartment gallery at Via Solferino 11 in Brera. Muuto launched two new designs: the generous Midst table designed by Swedish duo TAF Studio; and Mingle Cushions, designed by Thomas Bentzen and finished by Kvadrat in contrasting coloured textiles.

"[The] Midst table is a meeting between the poetic and functional. The name refers to the centre of the table being a gravitational point, while its round shape cancels out hierarchy - there is no head of the table. Its shape naturally draws us in towards its middle, encouraging a meeting of minds and eyes," said TAF Studio.

Muuto is distributed through Living Edge and other retailers in Australia.

District Eight is a furniture brand established in 2010 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This year, the brand will showcase its three latest furniture and design object collections - created in collaboration with designers Michele De Lucchi, Toan Nguyen, and Adam Goodrum. Collette by Sydney-based designer Adam Goodrum is a collection of seating and tables that celebrates the natural beauty of wood and demonstrates the production skill of the master craftspeople at District Eight.

Italian furniture brand Miniforms has added two new colours to its Soda range of coffee tables in collaboration with Greek designer Yiannis Ghikas. Originally released in 2020, Soda is made from hand-blown Murano glass and, despite its transparent appearance, weighs a sturdy 20 kilograms. Made by master glassmakers in Italy, Soda features one single volume with three large petals forming the base. The tables now come in four colourways: new 'Amethyst' and 'Blue,' and existing 'Amber' and 'Petrol Green.'

As part of Casamilano's new series of pieces designed by leading Italian architects, Roberto Lazzeroni was commissioned to design the Arne series. The link between past and future is evident in Lazzeroni's projects. Receptive to the history of design and its "signs," Lazzeroni defines his aesthetic as "sentimental design." The Arne collection embodies this via a family of modular tables with oval legs covered in leather, wood or platinum-painted steel ferrules. Available in various sizes and shapes, the customizable tabletops are forged from precious marble slabs.