Five materials that we discovered at Design Week

ph. Einar Aslaksen

Hydro CIRCAL 100R
The 100R exhibition celebrated, in the Capsule Plaza program in Spazio Maiocchi, Hydro CIRCAL 100R, the first aluminum in the world made entirely from post-consumer scrap, with unpublished projects by designers Inga Sempé, Max Lamb, Philippe Malouin, Shane Schneck, John Tree , Rachel Griffin and Andreas Engesvik. 100R, curated by Lars Beller Fjetland, presented products made in the new alloy of the same name, a recycled aluminum alloy that boasts a record-breaking carbon footprint of 0.5 kg of CO2e per kg. Hydro, a Norwegian company which is a world leader in the aluminum and renewable energy sector, therefore wanted to promote the use of this material which is often taken little into consideration, engaging with a group of internationally renowned designers, who transformed aluminum scrap into design objects with elegant lines, ready for mass production.



XL EXTRALIGHT®
In the spaces of Dropcity between the tunnels of the former warehouses connected to the Central Station, XL EXTRALIGHT® brought an exhibition project entitled INDUSTREAM (a portmanteau of INDUSTRY and STREAM), dissecting the complex transformative process of this material before the public. Chemical science, engineering, technology and the human factor integrate, giving life to one of the excellences in the world of special and innovative materials for the world of fashion, luxury and design. An expandable thermoplastic material, XL EXTRALIGHT® lends itself perfectly to the production of soles and other ultra-light products: weighing approximately three times less than that of similar materials with the same mechanical properties, it is composed of polyolefin-based granules, perfect for creating foams expanded and molded with injection technology. Andrea Caputo - assisted by Invernomuto - has made, for this edition of the Design Week of the Center for Architecture and Design, an attempt to give shape and vision to industrial and technological processes from compounding to injection molding in an immersive museum itinerary.


ph. Paavo Lehtonen

DURAT Plus
DURAT launched DURAT Plus, the first 80% recycled solid surface, at Alcova 2024, with a poetic installation by Linda Bergroth entitled "Door of Colors". Combining PET resin and solid surface material that contains up to 80% recycled materials, with this material DURAT promotes a creative and versatile circular economy, thanks to the palette of 300 colors enriched by a grit that creates ever-changing patterns for furnishings, surfaces and finishes in both indoor and outdoor contexts. The installation in Alcova, housed in the portico rebuilt at the end of the 19th century outside the villa with recycled materials from the North Gate of the Lazzaretto in Milan, reproduced the effect of a bathing scene at the end of the suggestive tree-lined avenue in the park Renaissance.


ph. Piergiorgio Sorgetti

econitWood™️
At Alcova, designer Harry Thaler presented Printed Nature in collaboration with the company econitWood™️, which reuses wood waste from sawmills and timber harvesting to create 3D printed furniture with meticulously defined geometric shapes. Inside the space of Villa Bagatti Valsecchi, objects emerged from sandy "dunes" of... sawdust!, revealing lamps, armchairs and tables of very generous dimensions and a chunky style. 



rehub
rehub, based on the island of Murano, in Venice, develops new technologies for the treatment of non-recyclable glass waste, following the principles of the circular economy. In fact, in Murano, glass factories produce around 1,000 tonnes of non-recyclable glass waste per year (8 million tonnes across Europe) and, starting from this quantification, rehub tries to market its technologies by helping customers transform costs related to waste management into new revenues. The objective is to reduce the environmental impact, energy consumption and related expenses of industries, optimizing resources and responding to regulations and certification requests. The road towards the full operation of the machinery is still long, so in the meantime, to promote an efficient recycling chain, rehub helps Murano glass factories to transform waste into new objects with down-cycling processes, also developing capsule collections or objects for fashion and furniture companies. The products designed by rehub were presented at Milan Design Week 2024 as part of the "Enhace" exhibition curated by DesignWanted.