---

Every year Seymour Powell undertakes a major research project at the Milan Salone, revealing important trends and influences. Introduction by Theresa Dowling, with extracts from Seymour Powell’s Milan Report.

---

With the euphoria of Milan Salone del Mobile over for another year, FX publishes extracts from Seymour Powell's authoritative research from the event. Mariel Brown (head of trends) and Camilla Sundwall (specialist trends researcher) jointly presented their findings in style and in London, to an audience of architects, designers and key clients, generously hosted and supported by Herman Miller at its flagship showroom. The full report, entitled Milan in Perspective 2015, can be found on the Seymour Powell website. It's been divided into six chapters: Humanising the Workforce; Material Interfaces; Sensorial Delights; Under The Bonnet; Invisible Visible, and Re-igniting Indulgence. seymourpowell.com/pdf/Milan_Report_2015.pdf It makes for powerful reading for trends and observations on worldwide product design: here's a glimpse of Seymour Powell's review of Milan Salone.

At the centre, two slowly moving sculptures acted like mysterious totems. These two majestic sculptures (one pictured above, and one in a separate space to the right and also shown on this Focus cover) of about 4m across and made of various shades of Hi-Macs (being shown by lG Hausys) including a translucent layer, connected the two environments. These slowly rotating, imposing medallions revealed all the beauty and versatility of the solid-surface H-Macs.

Humanising the Workplace
The office is transforming radically. Technology has changed the places we can work from and is bridging the gap between home life and work life. At the same time there is growing consciousness among employers that making people feel at ease increases productivity and motivation. These profound changes could be witnessed across many stands as designers and manufacturers explored the future of work and the workplace in imaginative ways.

Seen here is the Humanscale stand at Salone that exhibited its Ballo multipurpose stools by Don Chadwick, inspired by the exercise ball, and the Trea chair designed by Todd Bracher.The Trea chair was recently awarded the Best of the Best award by the much-coveted Red Dot award for top design quality and groundbreaking design.

Professor Dr Peter Zec, Founder and CEO of the Red Dot Award, stated: 'Innovation is not always visible with the naked eye. Often it is hidden aspects, such as a refined technology inside the product or an improved combination of materials, which constitute a lucid and sometimes brilliant new development. all those who are successful before this [Red Dot award] jury have invested a lot of time and understanding into the product submitted.'

Trea is the latest design from Bracher, who has also worked for brands such as Georg Jensen, Fritz Hansen, Tom Dixon, and 3M during his 20-year career.

The focal point of the office of the future debate was The Walk, a large-scale installation by architect Michele De Lucchi. The piece, as its title suggests, was a continuous walkway.

Material Interfaces
Designers have always explored and developed materials as part of the creation process. Recent advancements in material science and the fact that objects are connected to each other, for example through The Internet of Things, are pushing designers to explore new functions of materials. Dawn B Haleta's project 'Time Over Time' explores the changing properties of a material in relationship to the passing of time. Sculptural pieces of cast dichroic glass change colour and light throughout the day, evoking our instinctive ability to note the subtle changes in our environment as a method of tracking the passage of time.

Clever interactive surfaces from the University of Art and Design with BMW

Students of the Material Design department of the University of Art and Design Offenbach collaborated with BMW to create interactive surfaces that act as the medium for communication between car and driver. By exploring magnetic fields, air, static electricity, light and humidity as a means of transformation, the smart surfaces allow intuitive interaction through material innovation.

Sensorial Delights
We have seen an increased interest in all things sensorial, from soft, tactile textiles and surfaces to the importance of scent and sound in environments. The exploration and investigation of colour has also gained prominence with students, smaller design studios and even big brands such as Kartell - with its range of home scents accompanying its furniture range, and Lexus, whose whole Milan installation was titled A Journey of the Senses. The reawakening of sensorial and immersive experiences in design aligns with the general trend of mind and body awareness.

Danish Italian design studio Gamfratesi created the Euterpe perfume bottle for The Garden of Wonders, which showcased an exploration of scent through three installations in the Botanical Gardens of Brera

Under The Bonnet
As more and more people start to question what is inside the food products they use, they are keen to gain a deeper understanding and control over what they put both on and in their bodies.

Herman Miller and Maharam have partnered with Dutch design duo Scholten & Baijings to present lines, Grid & Blocks, at its showroom in Milan during Salone. It used its new woven textiles created in collaboration with Maharam to transform select furniture pieces from the Herman Miller Collection, recently introduced to the european market. it was applied to Wireframe Sofa by industrial Facility's Sam Hecht and Kim Colin, Brabo Club Chair by Vincent Van Duysen, Tuxedo Bench by BassamFellows, and a selection of classic Ward Bennett seating. Floor-to-ceiling textile panels reveal expansive repeats in unbroken vertical planes.

Over the years, Milan visitors have witnessed many designers playing with food at their exhibits, their creative minds being drawn to the rich culture and rituals that surround sustenance. At this year's fair we saw food taking an even more prominent role, thanks to the first-ever presentation of Eindhoven Academy's new undergraduate food design course Food Non Food.

Tutor Thomas Widdershoven explained the need for the course: 'Half the world is underfed, half the world is overfed. Those really obvious things make you want to think about food again and work on it.' The attention-seeking title of its first exhibition, Eat Shit, gained notoriety on social media platforms.

At Salone USM launched its new privacy panels, suitable for being used to create 'rooms' by dividing spaces in residential and office design.

The original product, conceived and designed by the architect Fritz Haller in 1965, has never dropped out of favour in europe. Respected for its linear lines and precision engineering, the modular system has never been adapted for new markets or new product lines. it is one of the few 'classic' product designs deserving of the name.

Our highlights included a project called Invisible Visible by a group of students from Eindhoven Academy who had set up a lab to take swabs from showgoers' hands and personal belongings. They then grew these into cultures to understand what type of bacteria is most prevalent in residents of different regions.

'Eat Shit' by Eindhoven Academy. Students swabbed visitors for their research

Invisible Visible
The joint exhibition Energies Unseen by Marjan van Aubel and Jólan van der Wiel explored, as the title suggests, unseen energies through playing with the principles of nature. The objects on display reacted to and visualised natural forces and processes, such as gravity and photosynthesis, disclosing hidden potential energies. Lights showing the amount of energy circling through the cables and LEDs powered by static electricity formed a part of the overall exploration of new technology being driven by efficiency versus the user.

Wojciech Gawronski reveals scientific hidden information from flowers in his Flora Code project

Wojciech Gawronski wanted to unpack hidden information, sometimes impossible to grasp, in the objects around us. His project, called Flora Code, reveals both visible and invisible information contained in flowers, whose structures continuously record changing conditions of their habitat.

Reigniting Indulgence
The luxury market has been in a state of flux in recent years, as emerging markets and millennial consumers gather economic influence amid a backdrop of global instability and rapidly advancing technology.

Marcel Wanders' Crystal of Fire

Understated luxury that pushes back on conscious consumption has been a longwave trend in Milan since the economic crash of 2008. We noted key products from Kartell, Knoll, Moooi and Se.