The 20th Century left vast, abandoned, spaces in our cities. Warehouses, factories, military barracks have been built and abandoned in a relatively short period of time. Now, the contemporary city is elaborating new strategies to re-inhabit these empty shells.
In collaboration with the visual Artist Roberto de Luca, I have designed, for the Swiss firm daskonzept, Hotello: a unit of 4 sqm, conceived to extemporarily inhabit the empty lofts of the contemporary city.

Hotello is a portable space, packed into a trunk. Hotello contains all the necessary elements needed to work and rest. It consists of a metal structure that supports a translucent and sound absorbant curtain. Hotello can be combined and aggregated in different configurations.

Hotello will be presented at the Fuori Salone 2013 in Milano at the Fabbrica del Vapore in via Procaccini 4 from 9-14 of April 2013. Opening April 9th from 6-8 pm.

The Fabbrica del Vapore exhibition space will be transformed into an open work environment which visitors are welcome to use. The installation will also have a performative element as it will host the editorial board of the Italian design magazine ABITARE for the five days of the event.

Das Konzept is a laboratory for design, retail, and production focusing on new ways to conceive the work environment. In 2009, Das Konzept opened in Thun, Switzerland in Konzepthalle6, an exhibition space that showcases office concepts. In addition to the workstations of Das Konzept itself, Konzepthalle6 also includes a restaurant, a conference room, and a concert room. Das Konzept is a center of excellence for design and architecture.

]]> http://www.conceptualdevices.com/2013/03/hotello-somnia-et-labora-a-portable-office-hotel-room-designed-with-roberto-deluca-for-daskonzept-at-fuorisalone-2013/feed/ 63 http://www.conceptualdevices.com/2012/04/poker-of-events-in-milano-at-salone-2012/ http://www.conceptualdevices.com/2012/04/poker-of-events-in-milano-at-salone-2012/#comments Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:52:09 +0000 Antonio Scarponi http://www.conceptualdevices.com/?p=2552 Whether you are an Italian designer or not the year ends at Salone in Milano every spring. Times are busy and the world design community is ready to gather and share event invitations as they do between civilized and happy family members with greetings cards during Christmas. So do I. To make it short I [...]]]>

Whether you are an Italian designer or not the year ends at Salone in Milano every spring. Times are busy and the world design community is ready to gather and share event invitations as they do between civilized and happy family members with greetings cards during Christmas. So do I.

To make it short I have got a poker this year. I will be indeed involved in four different event which I would like to share with you.

On Tuesday 17th of April at 18.00 in via Mellerio 1 & via GB. Vico 1, within the context of Kidsroomroom I will present TANTO. In this occasion it will be also presented TANTINO which is a smaller version of TANTO, the fairy tale bean bag I am producing.

On the same day but at 21.00 in via Savona 97 (in Francesco Jodice’s atelier) in an exhibition called Foster Care curated by Susanna Legrenzi, Stefano Mirti and Marco Petroni, I will present a new piece of the collection ReadyKea called Zoroaster: a device to grow lettuce hydroponically. The entire project is covered in the April issue of URBAN (a preview at this link) entirely dedicated to the Salone 212.

Friday 2oth I will participate at another exhibition curated by Susanna Legrenzi – cocktail party at 18.30- at Walter Voulaz space: “OBJECTS (IN THE NAME OF LOVE) is a collection of objects of affection that inhabit the private space 40 designers. A thin red line, the sentimental value of things that turns an object into the guardian of time, memory, affections“.

Here I will present a collection of nails that was given to me by a carpenter in New England, about ten years ago. According to him you can read the American urban revolution trough these nails: from the handmade ones (expensive and “rares” on the left) to the standardized ones that allow you to order a house by phone (towards the right).

The fourth event will be at the Fondazione Portaluppi, it is called “Little Italy” and it will be curated my Stefano Mirti and Alessandro Scandurra: “Little Italy is in the first place a magazine,  a magazine that comes in a unique number. If it were a traditional magazine we would have asked the various “contributors” to submit their articles, in this case we ask you to produce your content with others, the day April 21 at the Foundation Portaluppi.

Technically it is a “book sprint”. That is, the term derives from “code sprinting,” a method used by software developers who gather in a room and work on an open source project for a period of time.”

Exciting no?

Being an architect I like to design things that anyone can manufacture. A good design can turn the world population into the bigger creative industry ever known: an aware industry where ideas becomes effectively tangible. In this sense I like to draw recipes and instructions manuals as ultimate design tools of our times, so to produce devices that anyone can make. Readykea is a modular system realized with two IKEA pieces (Trofast and Antonius) combined and reversibly assembled with the use of zip ties. The design consists essentially in the functional subversion of these two IKEA products.

Readykea is a behavioral furniture conceived as an exhibition device commissioned by the DADA House, also known as the Cabaret Voltaire Zurich for the show “DADA New York II: Revolution to Smash Global Capitalism“. The exhibition is curated by Adrian Notz and Philip Meier. The featured artists are: The Yes Men, Reverend Billy, Voina Group, Irwin, Königreiche von Elgaland-Vargaland, Mc Ghillie, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, UBERMORGEN, Roland Wagner.

The exhibition had to be cheap, easy to store, easy to replicate elsewhere, easy to ship, easy to carry around and easy to dismantle. It is conceived as a shop, as a compound and as a workshop in progress. The brief requested three exhibition units containing the sections of the show (documentation – vision – action), a reception desk, a workshop desk, a bed to host a ‘revolutionary in residence’, eight stools and a corner for media content productions such as blogs and social media actions.

It was supposed to be a “guerrilla exhibition” and so it is.

The idea is that you need “capitalism” to “smash capitalism”. So, why IKEA? Because it is cheap, because it is everywhere and because it is open on Sunday. This is an instruction manual: make it, share it, distribute it, but most of all have fun!

Edge Park is an exhibition curated by Riccardo Caldura about a possible description of urban park models. A set of seven instruction drawings of Malthus manual will be exhibited.

Other artists and architects invited: Giancarlo Dell’Antonia, Bianco-Valente, Elisabetta Di Maggio, Vincenzo Casali, Tri.p Group + Giulia Filippi, Margherita Morgantin, Interno3, Manuela Sedmach, Antonio Scarponi, Marta Allegri, START UP, Antonio Guiotto, Nicola Genovese, Daniela Manzolli, Stefano Munarin + Maria Chiara Tosi, Emilio Fantin, Luigi Viola, Pavel Mrkus, Primoz Bizjak.

Forte Marghera 8-29 October 2001, pavilion n. 36, Venice. Opening October 8th at 17.00. Friend on Facebook here.

As designers we give ideas a form and we transform them into things. We can’t certainly solve the world’s challenges, but what we can do is to create a concrete storytelling about them. A narrative.

Malthus is one of these tales. It is an in-home aquaponics unit designed for the next generation kitchen or living room. It grows one meal a day: a portion of fish and a side salad. Aquaponics farming is a technique that combines the cultivation of fish with the growing of vegetables. The fish provides rich fertilizer for the plants and in return, the plants clean the water from the tank. The fish and the plants co-exist in a symbiotic relationship.

Malthus is an appliance for the kitchen of the future that grows food right next to where you cook it. Malthus consists of a fish tank that holds 400 litres which can support more then 2kg of fish like tilapia, salmon, grey fish or carp. The water is pumped through three cultivated grow beds which filter the water for the fish.

Malthus is designed to optimize space and costs with indoor food production. The weight of the fish tank is comparable to the one of a full bathtub, its width is about the size of two small refrigerators. Its parts are made of elements available in most DIY stores.

Malthus #01 was built thanks to the collaboration of Ola Nilsson and presented for the first time at the 10^th edition of NESS – Nordic Environmental Social Sciences Conference – Stockholm 14^th -16^th June 2011 within the context of the exhibition “Power Landscapes” curated by Po Hangström. The theme of the conference is also the theme of an art project where the invited artists (Katia Aglert, New Beauty Council, Cristine Ödlund) presented works on design as a tool for social and environmental engagement.

Malthus has a planned production limited to 100 numbered pieces. The first piece (Malthus #00) is the prototype currently running in our office in Zurich, thanks to Laura Vargalyte, our intern. The design and the production factors of Malthus have been made possible by the technical support of Andreas Graber from UrbanFarmers and Head of the Aquaponics project of the Zurich University of Applied Science who has introduced us to urban farming and to Aquaponics techniques.

A special acknowledgement goes to Stefano Massa for making things run smoothly throughout the project. This text has been kindly edited with the collaboration of Liz Henry Economou of Nuance Words.

Fish and Crops is an aquaponic unit that grows one meal. Directly where it is cooked. Aquaponic is a farming technique that combines the cultivation of fish in a symbiotic environment with crops: fish fertilize the water that nourish the plants. Plants clean the water from organic waste in return.

Conceptual Devices is pleased to announce that the results of the first Design Royale Workshop will be exhibited at Fuori Salone in Milano during the design week. A big thank you to all the students who participate to this workshop: Tommy Bett,  Katie Ogden, David Rose, Elizabeth Tschirhart, Joshua Wilson, Darren Yeo Jun Xian.

Design Royale is an on-line workshop, a party-in-progress, and the best mind-boggling night of the Milan Design week. It’s an ongoing project built through human relationships & lots of fun. 21 days of digital work using social media (facebook, twitter, flickr). 14 days of physical work in Milan hideaways 7 days of play and hard work and games on-the-spot …and 1 long night at the giardino segreto – a magical hidden space of tricks where everyone is invited. An extravaganza of elephants, a sauna, a hot-air balloon kitchen, tarot cards, inflatable sumo suits, friendly bento boxes, rope ladders, nets and hammocks, a household aquarium, and a coffin experience + much more… 15th april, via della Moscova 28, Milan (from 11.00 pm through the night).

Between the 10-12.12.2010 in SOHO FACTORY complex, Mińska Street 25, Warsaw, Just Undo It and Wired Unplugged will be presented within the Przetwory (recycle) festival. For this occasion a new project will be unveiled. More information soon. On Sunday the 12 at 13.00 I will talk about Triangular Design Manifesto.

Eco-friendly design bound with recycling methods is nowadays strong tendency in global product making. It is hard to avoid questions of shrinking natural resources, raising consumerism and programmed insolidity of contemporary products when being in a position of a designer or product manager today. We live in a circle of buying, using, collecting, disposing and sharing of consumer products. The XXI – century man is virtually sinking in the amount of produced, collected and used objects. We are rarely aware of a process that every product has to go through before getting into our hands. Terms „recycling“ and „sustainability“ made their way through global consciousness becoming a trend and a real motivation for reaching viable solutions in many fields of life. This process can be summed up with a question: how to survive? After four-year struggle related to organizing RECYLES event we can easily position ourselves on the radical other end of the rainbow towards mass production. We are promoting totally different approach to the product by supporting D.I.Y. idea and by endorsing unique design solutions.

Among the invited guests: Refunc (Netherlands), Basurama (Spain), El Ultimo GRITO/EUG Studio (UK), Mantas Lesauskas (Latvia), Tom Price (UK).

A workshop will be created by students of Royal College of Art in cooperation with students of Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts Faculty of Design.

The Italian Constitution, if compared with the real country, looks like a subversive manifesto.

Italy up in Smoke is a project for the promotion of the Italian Constitution abroad. The articles (in English) are framed into the non smoking graphic policy of the European Community. Italy up in Smoke is a way to say basta. We want to let everyone know what our constitution say. We want to say it loud, we want to say it now and we want to say it to an international audience. It is time for designers to take a position.

This is an Italia in fumo special edition with the article n.3. Here you can download the DIY kit. If you happen to be  in Milan for the design week, join us at bar basso Saturday the 17th  at 23.00. If you come with an “Italy Up in Smoke” t-shirt you will get a drink offered from us.

Yökalenteri means, in Finnish language, “Night Calendar”. A calendar that displays the minutes of night time in Helsinki throughout the year. Yökalenteri hosts “Rêvalités”, a work of Finnish Poet and writer Cia Rinne.”Rêvalités” consists of 36 mini prose pieces, dreams recorded during the time span of a year, which thematically deal with a variety of issues.

Yökalentari (Inkjet on paper 375×154 cm) will be on display at “Terra Infirma“, curated by Chiara Sartori, visiting curator at ISCP, NY. “Terra Infirma” gathers the works of six international renowned artists, exploring the ways in which a geographical context is able to affect emotions. Addressing feelings of melancholy and sorrow, the exhibition tentatively links attempts to interact with, modify and understand natural phenomena, landscapes and geographical codifications with the subtle and ephemeral emotional dimension of human existence.

Participating Artists: Rosa Barba, Laurent Grasso, Alban Hajdinaj, Marie Velardi.

Opening Reception: Thursday, January 14 6-9 PM
Gallery Hours: Friday, January 15, 2-16
Open weekly until February 14 every Saturday and Sundays 2-6 PM

ISCP. International Studio & Curatorial Program
1040 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211
www.iscp-nyc.org

Our project Italia in fumo will be exhibited  online at “the word is yours“. Opening 15th of October at 00.00 until November 19th at 23.00. Care of Gaspare Caliri.

Italia in fumo is a project in collaboration with Peppe Clemente for the promotion  of the Italian constitution. The articles are framed within the graphic appearance of the non smoking policy of the European Community. Italia in fumo means, in Italian, “Italy made of smoke” and “Italy is burning out”. Our intent is to claim the deep gap between the actual country and the beauty of its constitution. You can download DIY devices for “non smoking” Italian Constitution here.

Our project RIKEA (a manual about how to make a free market set with Ikea re-assembled furniture) will take part at the International Architecture Biennale, Rotterdam 25 Sept - 10 Jan 2010. Our participation includes a prototype and a “mini” documentary that will be part of the Urbaninform platform.

Intervention at Lusso Essenziale: convention/exhibition/concert at MACRO Future, Rome, may 21-22-23, around Low Cost culture. An event organized by Lowcoster.

Starting May 21st, in the spaces of Macro Future in Rome, luxury cultures will meet low cost concepts and mutate towards new, more ethical, sustainable and essential ways of living.

“The Essential Luxury” will showcase a three-day event organized around panel discussions and workshops with world renown designers, sociologists, artists and architects, but most importantly with the human beings behind those titles.

Three days to reflect on the development of everyday life-styles that can be at the same time luxurious and sustainable, affordable as well as socially responsible. A moment of confrontation and dialogue to communicate a new way of luxury: different, yet identical in quality, technology, research, creativity, curiosity and expertise. A chance to understand and experience a new culture of luxury which makes us aware of our conscious side, and puts it in charge.

Participants:
Paola Antonelli, Nello Barile, Davide Bocelli, Mario Cucinella, Brando Crespi, Umberto Croppi, Fabio D’Angelantonio, Orsola De Castro, Dickson Despommier, Maurizio Di Puolo, Paolo Ferrarini, Adriano Franchi, Silvia Gavina, Stephane Hugon, Daniele Kihlgren, Filippo La Mantia, Leonardo Lotti, Michel Maffesoli, Antonio Martino, Mara Memo, Matthew Morozzo, Cristina Morozzi, Sergio Pappalettera, Filippo Ricci, Domenico Sturabotti, Antonio Scarponi, Vincent Susca, Ilaria Venturini Fendi and artists: Aquilanti Andrea, Maurizio Cannavacciuolo Mario Council, Eliseo Mattiacci, Sergio Pappalettera, Julie Polidoro, Andrea Salvino Moderate: Antonio Mancinelli – Piero Negri

[with K_maps_Emanuele Bompan + Riccardo Pravettoni]

Malthus’ is a project designed for an Exhibition called FAMA/FAME (Hunger/Fame) The concept “to become famous” focuses the ambition of the artist to be accepted in the art system and, at the same time, the need to survive in everyday life. It represents symbolically all relations between life, love and success, money and the actually basic need of the human being.

Malthus’™ Products reflects on the debate about food crisis and are inspired by the observations of the British demographer Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) who wrote in 1798 an Essay on the Principle of Population. In his treatise he argued that demographic growth would have led to cultivate less fertile soil, bringing to a consequential shortage of means of sustenance and a halt in economic development, due to a faster geometric growth in population, in opposition with an arithmetic growth in the availability of food. Malthus™ products are designed to redistribute and optimize resources in a world with more than six billion inhabitants; to restrain resource-generated conflicts due to over-population.

* in memory of Elisabeth Mumelter, who believed that the creation of another world was possible…

Italia in fumo [with Peppe Clemente] www.italiainfumo.net means “Italy up in smoke”. It is a project for the promotion and the divulgation of the Italian Constitution. The project frames articles concerning the “Fundamental Rights of the Republic” (Parte I, Principii Fondamentali) and a selection of “Rights and Duties of the Citizens” (Parte II, Diritti e Doveri dei Cittadini) within the graphic device of the European non-smoking policy.

Italia in fumo consists of a web site that distribute PDF files for the Do It Yourself production of T-shirts, stickers, covers for cigarette boxes and a screen saver with the articles of the Italian Constitution, so that anyone could wear or use its favourite article displayed in this social warning fashion. For the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Italian Constitution, Italia in fumo has been presented as performance. People were invited to bring a T-shirt on which articles of the constitution would have been printed. Stickers and cigarette-box covers were also made and distributed during the event.

Here you can download all the Do-It-Yourself items produced. In this page the documentation of the performance at Assab One, Milano, June 2006. Photos credits: Andrea Penisto and Andrea Mascardi.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Installation, 2003_PVC tubes, tape, dropping water sound. [Collaboration with B. Galassi]

Vanishing Water displays the main problem related to the luck of drinkable water in the Sicily region, the losses. PVC tubes for urban pipes, are used as histograms that visualize the gap between the water available for the population, and the amount of water which has been paid by the users. The gap illustrates the water lost or stolen from the infrastructures. Data refers to the ISTAT population survey of 2001 and to the ‘Relazione sullo Stato dell’Ambiente in Sicilia 2002’ (Sicily Environmental Report 2002). Vanishing Water is an installation produced for the exhibition “Forme d’acqua. Visioni, Vicende e Pratiche nel Mediterraneo”, Palazzo Belmonte Riso, Palermo,2003.