Isola Design Festival 2024: This Future is Currently Unavailable

The eighth edition of Isola Design Festival, at Fuorisalone 202 from 15 to 21 April, will present an expansion of its format by arriving in new, unprecedented locations: Lampo Milano, WAO PL7 and Galleria Bonelli, never explored during Milan Design Week, are hidden gems of the neighborhood which have all the potential to become new hotspots in the district.

The event, with exhibitions, installations, events, workshops, live performances and talks, will involve more than 320 international designers, design studios, creatives and producers hosted in over 40 locations, including 3 main hubs.

Isola Design Festival 2024 will be made up of several focal points: three main hubs - Lampo Milano, WAO PL7 and Stecca 3.0 - and five exhibitions curated by the Isola creative team led by Elif Resimoglu (creative director of Isola Design Group) and other guest curators.

The theme of Isola Design Festival 2024 is This Future is Currently Unavailable, which encourages us to project ourselves into the future, to experiment and work with actors from different fields and disciplines, seeking innovative solutions, always taking into consideration the collective impact of design on the planet and on man. Thanks to proposals that combine innovation, sustainability and craftsmanship, Isola will bring together many realities in a promising multiverse of design, showing the potential of the sector in the years to come.

The global Isola community often meets at various international events, from Milan Design Week to the London Design Festival, from the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven to Tanween in Saudi Arabia, up to Dubai Design Week. This is why there are more and more international entities at the Isola Design Festival in Milan, to connect different cultures and countries.


© Idan EldarIsola 

Isola Design Gallery
This collective, one of the cornerstones of the festival, this year moves inside Lampo Milano, to the historic Scalo Farini railway yard, one of the most evocative locations created in recent years. The Gallery will celebrate collectible designs, one-of-a-kind designs steeped in history and contemporary products made by independent designers and design studios from around the world. Thanks to the polycarbonate panels and materials supplied by Polipiù, the setup will be a play of colours, lights and transparencies in contrast with the industrial and brutalist architecture.
Furthermore, Isola Design Gallery will host a section curated by Juan Torres for DesignWanted. ENHANCE Design for Social Impact will focus on design initiatives that have a positive impact on society, featuring innovations such as devices that use solar energy to generate light/electricity, systems that recycle waste as part of a circular economy and mechanisms that extract drinking water from fog.


© Erick Alexandro Perez Granados

Is One Life Enough?
A curated selection of collectible pieces, made with sustainable materials and circular methods. A section within the exhibition will be dedicated to Colab, the first library of materials created in the United Arab Emirates. The almost zero-impact setup of the exhibition will be made possible by the collaboration with Fantolino, which will provide recycled egg cartons as a base for the pedestals, and with Kineco which will create the pedestal tops with mycelium.

In addition to the two main exhibitions and numerous other individual installations, Lampo Milano will host the Pop-Up Design Store - where you can purchase small design pieces, magazines and many other products from the design community.
Designers/exhibitors of Isola - and the Media Corner of Isola - in collaboration with L'Essenziale Studio and DesignWanted, where it will be possible to get succulent scoops on some of the key figures of the Isola Design Festival - as well as a space dedicated to Talks and Panel Discussions set up by IAMMI with the LIKE A ROCK installation, where products from the Tofu collection are used, soft but rocky-looking seats made with recycled foam rubber. The expanded foam from the Tofu collection will be supplied by ReMat and will be covered by Poliart with Elastopol materials.


© Tereza Valnerova

Inside the new WAO PL7, One-Day Group's space dedicated to coworking, Isola will create a hub with various exhibition areas. WAO PL7's underground car park will be converted into a workspace to host Disclosure: Design Studios Unveiled, where several design studios will recreate their temporary atelier to reveal the creative process behind their products.

Architecture Hunter will present the first public event of The Hunt, an immersive augmented reality experience. Nine architecture firms, including Kengo Kuma, Woha, 3XN and Marcio Kogan, were selected to represent their interpretations of the “architect's refuge”.

The Italian design brand Hiro will collaborate with Isola to transform one of the most evocative spaces of WAO PL7 into a temporary showroom, the Hiro Design Home. A pop-up store in which the finalist prototypes of the Call for Ideas dedicated to an evergreen product, the shoe rack, will also be displayed.

Within the coworking area, the architecture and design studio specialising in biotechnology for the built environment ecoLogicStudio will set up a temporary workshop and workspace to present the PhotoSynthetica Collection, which includes three biophilic design products: a biotechnological air purifier, a compostable stool and a 3D-printed piece of jewellery made of micro-algae biomass.

Inside the Galleria Bonelli Isola will host two exhibitions recently presented during recent events in the Middle East: Routes to Roots and Anatolia. The collaboration with partners from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates arrives in Milan with these exhibitions, the first conceived for Tanween (Ithra Creativity Conference) and the second presented for the first time in Downtown Dubai.
Anatolia is inspired by the great crossroads of ancient civilizations and will promote the exchange of expertise and traditional and artisanal techniques from the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey and Asia. Routes to Roots, however, will be a journey through design from the Middle East and North Africa.

© Nieuwe Instituut - New Store Isola Design Festival 2024

The third hub, Stecca 3.0, the socio-cultural center in the heart of the neighborhood, will host local and international designers, artists, institutions and experts through public talks and workshops within the general theme Crafting Dialogues, and will host entities such as Constructlab, IAAD. , ISIA Urbino Academy, and Nieuwe Instituut.

On the ground floor of Stecca 3.0, the Nieuwe Instituut presents New Store, an exhibition that reimagines consumerism as a force for environmental and social good by challenging the traditional concept of product and which explores alternative forms of exchange, regenerative rather than extractive.

IAAD. together with Accademia Italiana and SAE Institute it will present Bravery Bar, a cultural and educational event created by a joint project of 21 design schools. The Bravery Bar, designed by students in collaboration with Fercam Echo Labs, will be a meeting space to stimulate dialogue between communities.

On the top floor, the exhibition Between Us, curated by Matteo Ragni and Giulio Iacchetti, will explore the theme of dialogue through design exercises, scale models and selected objects, which highlight values such as justice and peace.

Constructlab will curate the talks and co-design the Kiosk of Reciprocity, a mobile project that promotes convivial terrain and collaborative welfare in Milan.

© Ronald Smits

Spread throughout the neighborhood, Isola activates a network of places bringing together different design realities through strategically selected places that will connect the three main hubs. Among others:

• Around the Table, curated by Masquespacio, in via Luigi Porro Lambertenghi 3, an installation linked to the world of tableware and lounge design. An exhibition by day, which transforms into a private space for dinners with VIP guests, press, journalists, influencers and architects by night;-

• By arakawagrip by Arakawa & Co, in Zona K in via Spalato 11. Three exhibitions linked to Arakawa will bring the works of 16 Japanese designers to Milan: Arakawa Grip's Golden Library which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the brand;

• New Normal New Standard 4 - The Japanese Maison which presents the interaction between founders and young successors of some family businesses;

• COMPOSITION by Kairi Eguchi with the works of seven designers created using Arakawa Grip and inspired by phenomenology and fluctuation;

• Convey, The New Wave of Design Companies, at the Basic Village in Via dell'Aprica 12: with more than 1000 m2 dedicated to the presentation of new products, installations and activities, Convey connects contemporary brands and leading figures to accelerate their growth, creating opportunities and promoting shared values to contribute to the construction of the new international design scenario;

• OATLY! Pop-up – Designed For Humans, in via Confalonieri 11: for the first time in Italy, an installation, curated by Joris Verstrepen, of the brand known throughout the world for its oat-based products;

• New Craft (SHOP), in via Guglielmo Pepe 16: exhibition of the artisan brand Shinkogeisha will show how 3D printers can transform resin into common materials;

• SOLIDIFIED, meaningful manifestations, in Studio Via Farini in via Farini 35, will present products in which the materialization and the production method (craftsmanship) are essential;

• Size 100 by Design Soil, in via Pastrengo 5, will present a collection of furnishing accessories made up of products that fit into a package with a total size of 100 cm, "souvenirs" the size of a hand luggage on international flights;

• Urban Jungle Experience by Monkey 47, in via Confalonieri 21: an olfactory and immersive installation in the urban jungle will transport visitors to the heart of the Black Forest. Made with materials supplied by leading Portuguese cork brand GENCORK, the installation will tantalize the senses by allowing guests to experience the aromatic botanicals of Monkey 47 gin;

• We Were Here, curated by designers Jiin Yoon and Joris Verstrepen, at via Cola Montano 13: an exhibition and a cosmic journey in which designers will reveal new stories through form and function.

• WORTH Exhibition, at Bottega Immagine in via Carlo Farini 60. An exhibition designed and organized by the multidisciplinary design studio Tellurico will present 70 projects developed within the WORTH Project, the largest European creative incubator dedicated to promoting transnational collaborations between designers, creatives , manufacturing companies (SMEs) and technology companies;

• Angelo della Pergola 1 (Via Angelo della Pergola 1). The exhibition Curiosity marks the 7th participation in Isola Design Festival. Artist Myriam Kuehne Rauner presents sculptural pieces mixing art and design;

• Brussels House (via Gaetano de Castillia 23) promotes the image of Brussels as a dynamic, enterprising, creative and international place. The Brussels House in Milan offers the opportunity to emerging and non-emerging designers based in Brussels to exhibit their creations during the Milan Design Week;

• TOG Center (Via Livigno 1). The TOG Foundation opens the doors of its new Centre, inaugurated last October, to bring a reflection on design and beauty as privileged tools for inclusion to the most important Milanese showcase of the year;

• Green Island, inside the atrium of Stazione Garibaldi, presents The Secret Garden, where visitors can discover projects created with natural elements, wax, bees and vegetation. A journey of eco-design, landscapes and botany curated by Claudia Zanfi. The elements of this unusual garden revolve around the central installation created by designer Matteo Cibic and created by Jaipur Rugs, a special carpet in natural yarn.

• Regione Lombardia returns to Milan Design Week with a series of installations hosted at the Belvedere, on the 39th floor of Palazzo Lombardia, in the iconic Piazza Regione Lombardia and in the IsolaSET spaces;

• Primo Marella Gallery (via Valtellina 31) will present the artworks of its emerging international artists from non-European contexts. Over the years the gallery has focused primarily on China, Russia, India and now Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa;

• RivaViva (via Luigi Porro Lambertenghi 18) will host Artisan, a brand renowned for its craftsmanship in the production of solid wood founded on the legacy of the ancient Ćostović carpentry in Bosnia. This collaboration launches a line of ecological furniture with timeless elegance and production cycles with low environmental impact.