From the 'piana dei marmi' to the prestigious Fuorisalone event: Waste Legacy represents the potential of upcycling and narrates the role of designers as pioneers of a new way of thinking about design itself and revolutionising the method of design and production in the luxury market towards a more inclusive, sustainable and circular system.

Elements Milano returns to the Fuorisalone and for the occasion presents Waste Legacy, the first collection of furniture and furnishing elements made from waste materials realised in collaboration with architect Frédéric Louis Fourrichon and the Fourrichon Architecture Studio.

The four series of objects in the collection - tables, coffee tables, sofas and decorative objects - are created from redundant marble from the production remnants at Elements Milano's stone and ceramic workshops (located in the province of Bergamo).

The idea for a collection that originates from waste - being marble, it is 'noble waste' anyway - stems from a visit by architect and designer Frédéric Fourrichon to the 'piana dei marmi' (marble plain), a large open-air deposit where all the waste materials from the furnishing projects of the Elements Milano showroom are collected. "When I entered this place and saw the waste, I began to glimpse its potential. I absolutely had to do something, to think of a way to give new life to that accumulation of marble" Fourrichon explains. "We live in an era where rethinking the way we do design is a duty, both ethical and social. We are indeed at a point of no return: consumerism must give way to a culture of saving resources - of whatever kind - that is environmentally and people-friendly. By now this change is underway and we architects and designers just need to accelerate the process by transforming our design approach. For example, we should take Design for Disassembly more into account, and learn to integrate waste management already at the design stage to avoid unnecessary waste."

Through Waste Legacy, Elements Milano and Frédéric Fourrichon thus become the exponents of a more inclusive design, based on the principles of environmental and economic sustainability and circular economy.

This collection represents a new way of understanding design; it is the starting point of the path undertaken by Elements Milano in collaboration with Fourrichon and his studio, which aims at changing the design paradigm that, to date, takes little account of the remains resulting from the cutting of marble and ceramic slabs. The future, for Elements Milano and Fourrichon, is an inclusive design in which a strategy for the recovery of waste material is worked out already in the first design phase. The result will be a piece of furniture with a sustainable soul that does not renounce refined and tasteful aesthetics. "Over the years," explains Felice Terzi, owner of the showroom, "I believe that the way of conceiving luxury and its aesthetics will change. A piece of furniture or a luxury project will be such when it includes the principles of attention to raw materials, environmental sustainability and recycled materials."

The innovative and pioneering project represented by Waste Legacy fits perfectly with the 'Space and Time' theme chosen for the June 2022 edition of the Fuorisalone. As written on the event's official channels "Design in this scenario is a true activator, capable of supporting the transition towards environmental sustainability, [...]. The role of the designer today is to help us with his visions to understand the complexity of reality, in all its nuances, drawing maps to move in the world and understand it."

The Waste Legacy capsule collection will be on display at the Elements Milan showroom from 6th to 12th June. The official presentation in the presence of Frédéric Louis Fourrichon will be held on Wednesday 8th June from 6pm and will be open to all. To conclude the week, an invitation-only event will be held on Saturday 11th June from 6 pm.