From Milan furniture design festival to design manufacturing business development Milan in April be

From Milan furniture design festival to design manufacturing business development

Milan in April becomes a festival stage celebrating contemporary design, and the 2016 festival saw extraordinary designs coming in high waves. The exhibition venue had become a competition of anti-trend designs, and there was a clear shift in design themes. Destruction of conventional collocation concepts had led to the birth of unfinished, raw designs that were appreciated by audience. Up-rising designers rejected the idea of flagship branding strategy. Instead they embraced the new innovation era: big data against intelligence science; subtle and delicate design against intensive fashion stimulation.

The understanding of making designs as a way to mark social hierarchies has been strongly challenged. In the foreseeable future, humanism and human needs will become the main focus.

The 2016 Milan furniture festival was also a celebration of design innovation.

Since its first launch in 1961, the furniture festival in Milan has always been a main stage for furniture design. But this year the tradition was changed. BMW's MINI car represents its “sharing brings more” concept in a design named ‘micro-life’. With a room of 30 square meters, they built a multi-functional home ashram. Nike reinterpreted the "natural movement" as an attempt to reflect physical freedom of movement and a natural connection to consciousness. AirBnB, a famous home-sharing business, expressed its business philosophy through emphasising human social needs.  

Pepsi embraced customers’ desires of healthy living in their product designs. Lexus introduced its new energy vehicle design based on the concept of ‘state of mind’, or “hopeful encounters” as they put it, was their strategy to draw out people's intuitive feelings about hydrogen energy.

The attention on Milan furniture festival was global. Companies were not looking for business deals. Instead, they were seeking new values, cross-industry conversations. They understood the risks of following trend blindly, only new stimuli can bring true innovation.

Companies outside furniture industry were not the only players in this anti-trend movement, up-rising designers also started to join this force.

Students from the Netherlands Eindhoven Design Academy were part of the force. They challenged and pushed the concept of ‘every waste can be put in use’ to its absolute limit. For example, pine needles have long been the most common waste in the wood processing industry. Students experimented and transformed them into brand new materials that were fluffy as wool.

Their experiments went on to include more wastes; even fish skins, volcanic rocks could be converted into new materials.

The attempt on applying new materials in functional furniture design was not deliberate. Rather, young designers would just lay these new materials on stage in their raw forms, hoping to challenge public opinion on wastes. The suspected uselessness from the new materials shocked public, challenged their imagination boundary. And by doing so, the boundary disappeared. New, bold and imaginative products will be born. Judging by audience’s reaction, these "raw" designs were far more welcomed than the completed ones, encouraging new generations to be more creative.

In this festival, more than a quarter of participated designers were rookies. Their design motivation had drifted from serving big companies or making fortunes, to solving social issues. They were eager to play an active role in this social movement.

From a historical perspective, conventional designs usually imply social hierarchy differences and social Darwinism. As royal authorities starting to vanish, designing had been used as a tool to distinguish social classes. The 2016 Milan Festival wished to challenge that social phenomenon. Designers not only expressed concerns towards environmental protection, but also social crisis, risks and challenges in their works. Themes ranged from European immigration crisis, city gentrification, accommodation crisis, space suppression and panic.

For example, children furniture was designed based on childhood development. How to nurture the next generation? How to build a healthy family relationship? Some furniture companies in the US and Italy had addressed these issues and Italy and the end products were impressive. By 2020, the US market for children's furniture will reach $3.08 billion. In addition, the "post-ikea" design continued its flat and assembly features, but emphasized more on systemic and economic benefits. For example, the "Pin Room" designed by CarloRatti and the "Grey Cork" design from American companies can all home furniture in a flat package. The Danish "hey" designed "CanSofa" based on the concept of easy transportation, easy to assemble, fine quality and versatile functions.

As the urban housing space is getting smaller and the housing crisis is getting worse, wasteful luxury design are vanishing from the stage. Instead, exquisite and clever designs that focused on humanism and social needs will take over.

Exquisite, precise and simplified design themes are central features of the new movement, and it also set a milestone for art and science integration in designing.

When the Wright brothers invented the first plane, the wing was made of redwood, and the engine was a simple cylinder with a bicycle chain. A century later, the jet engine had evolved into a design of more than a million components. The evolution of human knowledge can be seen from the complexity of machines, and reflected from the design philosophy. At this Milan Festival, audience saw an increase in rigorous systematic thinking behind concepts, and lighter and more simple in appearance.

As words from Zhou Yi, a good design should be "ordinary people appreciate the simplicity, and experts appreciate its complexity”. The right combination of simplicity and complexity holds the key to perfect design.

GregLynn applied the blood circulation, muscle curves, skin cooling mechanisms of human body in his "little athlete's climate lounge chair" project supported by Nike. During resting, the chair could relax the user while speeding up recovery. Another scientific and artistic design was the giant yet stable table in the design studio of Kristalia, Italy. Size and stability have always been a tough task to tackle when designing furniture, let alone flexibility. Koxtapia's desk satisfied all those conditions, the secret was behind its new and innovative materials, inspired by airplane wing materials. Its 6mm thick table surface was moulded by honeycomb aluminum panels. It was compact, lightweight and capable of bearing weight. When public would be impressed with its practicability, professionals would appreciate its clever design.

Innovation always spread from technology to organization. The phenomenon revealed by the 2016 Milan furniture festival is a shift of furniture industry. Reorganization, differentiation and integration, the furniture industry is evolving just like the fashion industry. From big companies and brand monopoly to independent branding. Furniture design and brand innovation were seen in starting "cellular organization". That is, designer acts independently and actively involved in managing industrial chain, from manufacturing to marketing.

London-based designer Lee Brown displayed his works in a container truck that can drive to any customer's door. In the case of Chinese furniture industry, manufacturing is the main competitive advantage and the new international movement brings great opportunities. At this point, companies should adopt a practical business model focusing on “self” as their guiding strategy.

(Author Yongjian Bao is an associated professor at Department of management at University of Lethbridge, Canada and professor of EMBA, school of management, Fudan University; Gao works as the general manager of Zhendan furniture innovation centre)

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