During Milano Design Week 2018 at FuturDome in via Paisiello Secondome presented “Match”, a meeting-clash between materials and shapes. Two couple of designers, two different approaches to the concept. Marble and plexiglass, bronze and Murano glass, contrasting textures mixing in two objects connected through their differences. The artisanal nature of Secondome’s production makes each piece individual and highly personalized. The bench and the table Fusion designed by Millim Studio (photo credits: Serena Eller) are a tale of a fusion, where the empty and full mix up. Marble becomes an embracing “mother”. The matter withdraws to leave space for another matter. Like a magnifying glass, huge transparent cylinders in Plexiglas, cross and reveal the heart of marble, mixing with it. Millim is a multidisciplinary design studio founded in 2016 by Chiara Pellicano and Edoardo Giammarioli, both born in 1989, operating in different fields: creative consultancy, art direction, product design and visual design. It’s the very concept of “desire” that leads them in a deep research on the role that Design can play with it. For the duo, it’s the sense of things that excites and creates new inspiration. Where the need ends, the desire takes shape. Both, after working for important design and architecture studios, have started working together on individual projects, bringing the vision of the couple as an added value to the design process. The “double” is a central theme. Millim is a palindrome word that contains all the nuances and codes about the vision of the two designers. Playing with the idea of the legendary 8th continent Atlantis – alive in our imagination, it continues being enigmatic if it really did exist – Hillsideout alias Andrea Zambelli and Nat Wilms realized the coffee table called Atlas which marks the beginning of a collection of utopian furniture pieces that could have belonged to the Greek Titan Atlas, the first king of the paradisiacal and highly civilised island of Atlantis.Of course, it could not be an ordinary piece of furniture since it has lain in the depths of the Atlantic for over 2500 years. Its history is made of metal because the island was famous for that. Its archaeology, however, has adapted to its destiny. Therefore it is destroyed and somehow different. Its soul is made of water because it cannot exist without water and which “freezes” in the melted state to become glass, robust and fragile in one. The combination of its inherited character makes it surprisingly usable again. Hillsideout is a joint studio which came to life in 2009 out of a mutual concern and discomfort for the degradation of abandoned sites in the Italian Apennines. Hillsideout expresses the need to transform the state of uselessness but also forgotten stories into practical functionality. The ancient, mainly medieval, mountain villages but also journeys abroad are the starting point for transforming the past into “living memory” in the form of uniquely handcrafted contemporary furniture. SECONDOME Founded by Claudia Pignatale in 2006, Secondome is a Design Gallery focused on contemporary designers and innovative projects worldwide. It produces its own collection of furniture and objects working to launch experimental designers, artisans and master craftsmen. Its mission lies in highlighting both the high-quality manufacture of the Made in Italy brand and the originality of products, emphasizing the tradition of Italian craftsmanship whilst breaking the mould of lifeless objets d’art.
