Our perspective on the 2015 Salone del Mobile in Milan

Every year in April, Milan erupts with energy for the ‘Salone del Mobile’. You go to the Salone and ‘Fuori Salone’ for ideas not so much to see products. It’s an intense few days to concentrate on design, exchange ideas with colleagues and to be inspired. The event requires strategic planning as it’s vast. 

Here are a couple of memorable installations, one from the fairground which included Workplace this year.

A sculptural installation by Michele de Lucchi, one of Milan’s historical figures in design, ‘The Walk’. A ‘belvedere’ for unexpected encounters, a pathway through and over the four concept spaces. Different environments to enhance creativity and productivity ‘The Club’ , ‘Free Man’ ‘Lab’ and ‘Agora’. The Lab with its carpenters’ workbench picked up on the craft theme and extensive use of wood for many of the stands.

Elsewhere at the fairground there were many examples of adjustable height desks and tables to be seen reflecting the interest around health, encouraging movement and standing .





A free standing acoustic screen creates a sculptural backdrop, just one of the many acoustic devices and treatments to be seen.



An installation from ‘Fuori Salone’
Many of Milan’s hidden courtyards and gardens become populated with various installations for the week.

Here the botanical gardens of Brera hosted ‘A journey through scents’, an interesting and inspiring experience in a beautiful garden.

Helping passengers by understanding their needs

Often the best ideas are the simple ones.

For anyone catching a bus in London during the rush hour has probably experienced a mad crush on the lower level only to find that the top level is almost empty.  For some, they like the convenience of sitting or standing close to the door.  But for others, there the lack of visibility of what space is upstairs along with perhaps an assumption that it must be busy and not wanting to go up, find it is full and have to head back down again.

So it's great that responding to this, Transport for London are trialling a simple indicator to show the availability of seats on the upstairs level.

You can read more about the trial at this blog - http://goo.gl/AuJcVC