An exhibition curated by ADI exalts the limit as the flywheel of design. In the name of sustainability

Limit, in design as in art, can become a powerful driver of ingenuity and creativity. There is no need to bother Michelangelo and his David, carved from a long narrow block of marble, to prove the validity of this statement. Which, in a few days, will find further confirmation at Marmomac.

BIKO – Paolo Crivelle e Alessandro Piras
Biko | Table - Designer: Paolo Criveller and Alessandro Piras - Company: Margraf. The Biko table was created in keeping with the message of sustainability by taking advantage of all the slab of Carnic gray marble made available and designing a table that can be assembled dry. Biko is characterized by the legs that support the top: rotated among themselves by 90°, they allow for ever-changing corner solutions and thus insert the fourth dimension, time, into the design.

The limit the flywheel of designuality

The world's leading trade fair for marble and natural stone returns to Verona on September 27 and stages, in its rich program, an exhibition that is an act of love for the limit understood as a flywheel of designuality. Etica Litica, curated by the Adi Veneto e Trentino Alto Adige delegation, is a selection of sixteen works all created using a marble slab measuring 3.30 x 2 meters and 2/3 cm thick, representative of the most common commercial sales form. "For the realization of the work," explains designer Carlo Trevisani, a member of the board of ADI Delegation VTAA and curator of the exhibition with Silvia Sandini, "the surface of the slab had to be exploited to the maximum, so as to minimize possible waste of material."

Senza nome
Circles in the water | Sinks - Designer: Patrizia Bertolini - Company: Marmi Scala/Eustone. Sinks made from the scraps of one or several stone slabs. The particular design allows to obtain chromatic variables of the product depending on the available slab scraps, combining differently the cut-out rings that overlapped and glued configure the washbasin.

Respect, vitality and beauty

So there is sustainability, in particular the theme of minimizing waste, at the center of the exhibition that featured seventeen talented and established designers. There is Etiko, Ascanio Zocchi's table, Patrizia Bertolini's Cerchi nell'acqua washbasin, as well as Valerio Facchin and Giovanna Carturan's Stoneslice and numerous other works that enhance the inclination and sensitivity of contemporary creatives to such a crucial issue as respect for a precious, limited resource. In the exhibition, design becomes the mirror of a thought that, respecting precise design limits, demonstrates its vitality and beauty, offering suggestions and novel solutions to open up to a more sustainable and ethically just world. Set up at The Plus Theatre in Hall 10, the exhibition is completed with a review of products made of stone materials that have been awarded the Compasso d'Oro and ADI Index recognition over the years.

ETIKO – Ascanio Zocchi
Etiko | Table - Designer: Ascanio Zocchi - Companies: Biesse Spa- Intermac. From a single slab and with minimal waste, comes Etiko, the table that combines waterjet processing technique, craftsmanship and the containment of material use. Made from statuary marble from Carrara. Each piece is unique, repeatable in form but not in material.

A vision of values

"Etica Litica is the first real exhibition of ADI Delegation VTAA at Marmomac, an appointment that the association has declined from the perspective of contemporary design according to a value vision that included cultural aspects by combining two different presentations of projects," explains Trevisani. "The first section consists of a presentation of quality projects made of marble and emerged in recent years in two important association appointments: the ADI Design Index, the annual selection of the best Italian design made by the Permanent Observatory of Design, and the ADI Compasso d'Oro Award, the oldest but above all the most authoritative world design award.In the second section, the delegation's design members were involved, inviting them to conceive new products ad hoc. The exhibition was built with a natural process of organic growth: a curatorial cut was avoided by opting for coordinated management, and the designers were involved with a choral call to work responsibly on the defined theme: a slab, a product, waste."

IMPREVEDIBILE – The Studio
Unpredictable | cladding - Designer: The Studio | Laura Menichelli - Alessandro Vergot - Company: Marimar. An unpredictable game of infinite possibilities that reinterprets marble cladding by deconstructing the slab to recompose it in a younger, fresher and more contemporary form. The marble, Nuvolato Calacatta, with its white texture and characteristic caramel veining, is divided into 3 sizes (square, rectangular, triangular) and 3 finishes (polished, sandblasted, bamboo) to create an SET of 9 elements with infinite compositions.

An ethical stance

The designers involved were thus confronted with a valuable material that is no longer producible, whose availability is limited and whose processing is complex: the riskiness of the quarry, the significant weight that affects all phases of logistics, transportation, processing and delivery. "Optimizing lithic production by making the best use of the available material is an inherent constraint of the project, and both an economic necessity and an ethical stance in addressing the issue of sustainability. The projects on display are the expression of this responsible vision, conjugated by each individual designer or studio according to his or her own sensibilities; a collection of positions organic to the approach to contemporary design, an approach respectful of sensitivities that are particularly felt today, both in a society attentive to environmental impact and, above all, throughout the marble and stone processing chain."

NEXUM – Gino Carollo
Nexum | Table - Designer: Gino Carollo Studio - Company: Testi Group. Nexum in Duke Grey marble is designed for an industrial seriality based on environmental sustainability that does not give up design. The design starts with a 310x200 slab from which two tables with their legs and decorative vases are made. Waste is thus brought to a minimum. The surface finish is smooth on one side and rough on the other; this choice makes it possible to use the waste part "the peel" that is usually subtracted from the original block of material.

A timeless material

Natural stone, the curator adds, in addition to being unique in texture and veining, is a material charged with meaning that ages by acquiring charm with the signs of time and patina. "A material intended primarily for architectural production. Those in the industry often engage in contract manufacturing, limiting their expertise and production capacity for product development. This exhibition-and Marmomac's cultural activities in which Etica Litica is embedded-is a strong stimulus for operational awareness and for those in the industry to evolve into their own production editors."

STONESLICE – Valerio Facchin e Giovanna Carturan – 02
Stoneslice | Bench for short stops - Designer: Valerio Facchin and Giovanna Carturan - Company: Cereser. Two-sided bench made from a slab of Cambrian-Black Canadian granite. Like a sheet of cardboard that we divide into a series of modules. The assembly is achieved by pre-drilling all the slabs, spacing them with steel pipe, and compressing them with 3 threaded steel bars, such that the whole is a rigid body. The purpose reports to the total use of the slab with minimal waste, bringing the slab modules back together to recompose a single monolith.
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