From 17 to 22 April, LifeGate invites you to the hub at Superstudio Più to discuss sustainability issues related to design. And Materials Village awaits you with a major exhibition on smart cities and smart citizens.
Giving voice to sustainability issues connected to the design sector: this is the purpose of Design4Climate, a hub dedicated to information and in-depth coverage of topics such as climate change, circular economy and smart cities, which LifeGate, in collaboration with Connect 4 Climate, will create on the occasion of the Fuorisalone at Milan Design Week, from 17 to 22 April.
The project will find its home, thanks to Material ConneXion Italia, within the Materials Village set up at the prestigious venue of Superstudio Più and will offer a rich programme of special videos, live interviews, editorial activities and social content. If the goal of LifeGate, since its founding in 2000 from the Roveda family's experience with Fattoria Scaldasole (the first company to enter large-scale retail distribution with an organic product), has been to promote a more conscious approach to redefining progress by taking environmental, social and economic indicators into account — during Milan's design week, too, it will work with passion and determination, through its own media network, to make information, projects and services available and give people the opportunity to embrace sustainability in every daily choice.
Read also: Milan Design Week 2018. Design and materials, the circular economy according to Material ConneXion Italia
In its fifth edition, Materials Village, dedicated to materials, new technologies and sustainability, from interior design to construction, from textiles to architecture, will expand over a surface area of more than 1,850 square metres, occupying the entrance of Superstudio Più and the entire Art Garden, a tree-lined garden that for the occasion will be transformed into an entirely new village. And this year there will be two high-impact installations that will surprise visitors.
At the main entrance, the spectacular tower designed by architect and designer Marco Piva, "Tower of Colours", will showcase the primary materials that form the basis of an architectural project, while alongside the tower the theme of the circular economy will be developed, the focus of another outstanding installation by Yona Friedman, the celebrated utopian architect, designer and urban planner of Hungarian origin, naturalised French.
To reflect on the theme of the city of the future, Material ConneXion® Italia will organise, within Materials Village, the second edition of the exhibition-event "Smart City: Materials, Technologies & People" curated by architect Giulio Ceppi and sponsored by the Municipality of Milan: the exhibition, which will open to the public on 17 April, will remain extraordinarily open until 12 May and throughout its run will be accompanied by a programme of meetings, workshops, conferences and events. The exhibition was conceived from a new perspective — that of "smart citizens", the active citizens of tomorrow, drivers of change in facing the challenges posed by the global transformations currently under way. Walking through the various display modules, visitors will discover cutting-edge material and technological solutions in the different areas that characterise smart cities and within which the most significant changes are taking place.
Based on these reflections, the exhibition has therefore been divided into six thematic areas: Advanced Building and Infrastructures, which showcases materials and products for infrastructure and buildings; Connected City, which presents solutions for the exchange of information, the collection and management of data and the new interconnected lifestyle; Smart Living, Smart People, which gathers ideas for improving the quality of the objects that surround us; Sustainable and Circular City, which focuses on technologies that work on reducing consumption, managing waste and resources with a view to circularity; Integrated Mobility, which focuses on materials supporting new mobility, from car/bike sharing to the renaissance of public transport; and finally, Food Policies and Urban Agriculture, which analyses solutions for a more sustainable approach to food and for the integration of green spaces in cities.
Materials Village will also host 20 exhibiting companies, with particular attention to producers of acrylic paints, pure pigments, water-based colours for ceramics, fabric and glass, as well as varnishes resistant to wear, chemical agents and sunlight, all aimed at improving environmental impact with an eye to ecology. Among the most prestigious partners, the MIT Media Lab will be present — the interdisciplinary research laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, which bases its research on technology, media, science, art and design and architecture — and will give a preview of a research project dedicated to a high-performance fabric that reacts differently depending on the level of atmospheric pollution; specifically, unisex T-shirts equipped with sensors capable of detecting the level of danger in the air.
