* Raffaella Mangiarotti is an architect and designer, based in Milan. She teaches at the Milan Polytechnic.
Function, looks, ergonomics. These are the fundamental parameters for the design of masks, now a device of public safety indispensable for all. Designing them poorly means generating danger, putting everyone’s health at risk.
At the start of the lockdown, designers and companies worked on mask projects without swapping ideas, all following their own path. Designers focused almost exclusively on looks, while companies thought only about the material to be utilized. Lack of knowledge of medicine and the haste to at least do something drove institutions to spend millions of euros, importing items that were probably useless. In the meantime, the Milan Polytechnic launched the project Polimask: it evaluated 2000 types of masks – made in various materials, from all over the world – and concluded that only 10 of them could be considered valid.