The winners have been announced in the first edition of the contest Velasca Progetto Design – Idee sotto la Torre, organized by UnipolSai inside the project Urban Up and in collaboration with Studio Lissoni.
The purpose of the competition – involving young designers from the Istituto Europeo di Design, Naba, Politecnico di Milano and Scuola Politecnica di Design – is to develop a product – a small table, lamp, armchair, chair or stool – that can define and forecast innovative and contemporary usage scenarios in continuity and/or rupture with the historical tradition of Italian design.
The jury composed of Gilda Bojardi (editor of Interni), Luciano Galimberti (president of ADI), Fulvio Irace (professor of History of Architecture at Politecnico di Milano), Piero Lissoni (architect, designer and art director of many companies), Antonella Ranaldi (superintendent of archaeology, fine arts and landscape for the metropolitan area of Milan) and Massimiliano Morrone (UnipolSai Assicurazioni, Head of Asset & Investment Real Estate and SGR Immobiliare) assigned the prize of 10,000 euros to the winning project: Bruta (by Daniel Franchini, Marisa Rotolo and Victor Hyll Nilsson of the Scuola Politecnica di Design), a lamp with an extruded profile and a base in concrete that represents a small work of architecture inspired by a structural element.
The second prize (8000 euros) went to Panna (by Davide Piersanti and Ginevra Franchi of Istituto Europeo di Design), a ‘flatpack’ seat made with panels of recycled plastic, assembled by the user.
The third prize (5000 euros) was for Light Scape (by Andrea Violante, Meeratchata Rujinarong and Yi Ting Chiang of NABA), a lamp based on the dialogue between light and shadow that creates infinite effects in nature, allowing the user to adjust light intensity and direction.
The fourth most voted project was Pandorea (by Cristina Muto of Politecnico di Milano), a modular lamp that can be personalized, activated using voice recognition technology.
At the prize ceremony – held on the ground floor of Torre Velasca – UnipolSai made a prototype in actual size of the projects presented by each school. The prototypes, together with the selected projects and those submitted outside the competition, were on view during the entire summer period at Spazio Acquario (installed in collaboration with Kerakoll Design House) on the ground floor of the tower.
