22/09/2021 - To coincide with Fuorisalone 2021, D Studio opens a new space in Milan where Design Holding’s iconic brands can all interact under one roof. D Studio is offering Italy an innovative setting that fuses retail and project planning to provide a space where professionals, clients and lovers of design can try out the very best of Italian and Scandinavian invention. This includes the peerless icons of B&B Italia, the sophistication of Maxalto, the timeless classics of Azucena, the avant-guard kitchens of Arclinea, the experimental and innovative creations of Flos and Louis Poulsen’s iconic Scandinavian designer lamps that are designed to shape light.
The world’s first D Studio was opened in Copenhagen in June 2021 and occupies a beautiful historic building in Holmen, a residential neighbourhood as well as a cultural hub. The Milan Flagship Store is located in via Durini 14, an address that is synonymous with the beating heart of Italian design. The space that used to house B&B Italia’s historic store has seen its 2,150 smq given a new lease of life. In D Studio, each brand plays a leading role while simultaneously relating to and with a multitude of surrounding objects and products, offering a brand new hub that embraces experience, business and inspiration.
D Studio in Milan is the brainchild of Massimiliano Locatelli and Piero Lissoni, both key players in international architecture and design. Locatelli Partners architectural project has repurposed the space, revealing previously hidden features. Today’s redesign combines light and transparency to highlight the relationship between internal and external spaces. The via Durini building - designed in 1954 by Sommariva Studio - initially housed an imposing car showroom flooded with natural light through its plate-glass windows and skylights. These features have been repurposed in full by Locatelli on all three levels offering continuity, volume and a relationship with the city.
D Studio is the ideal place to bring out each brand’s iconic style in a fluid space where uniqueness creates symbioses to uncover.
B&B Italia has its entire eclectic indoor and outdoor collections on show in D Studio. Contract and retail customers can play around with the various facets the brand offers, displayed across all three floors as well as in the garden. Collection pieces such as Camaleonda by Mario Bellini and UP by Gaetano Pesce sit happily alongside 2021 innovations such as Noonu sofa system by Antonio Citterio, Allure O’ table and Flair O’ swivel dining chair by Monica Armani, Harbor Laidback armchair by Naoto Fukasawa and Sir Vito multi-purpose table by Studio Kairos. The store opening will also preview some of 2022’s creations such as Pablo Outdoor, Vincent Van Duysen’s collection and Piero Lissoni’s sunbed, Borea.
Maxalto has found its niche in the 400sqm entirely given over to the mezzanine, the ideal space to immerse yourself in the timeless style designed by Antonio Citterio and appreciate the genuine luxury of these sophisticated creations. Azucena will of course be discreetly yet instantly recognisable throughout the showroom with its classics pieces designed by Luigi Caccia Dominioni.
Arclinea dominates the contract area on the ground floor offering an exploration that invites the visitor to extend their discovery in the nearby Flagship Store located at via Durini 7. The decision to furnish the Contract area with Thea, Antonio Citterio’s latest project for Arclinea, illustrates the extensive flexibility of this idea with its global market reach. Thea is the interpretation of a specific desire to separate the kitchen into two distinct and complementary areas, the Wet and Show kitchen: one more technical and the other more convivial. This provides two functionally separate spaces divided by means of partitions/boiserie and the Frame doorway System.
Flos light creations spread across all floors starting with the long ground-level wall space showcasing decorative products. Outdoor decorative and technical lighting provide harmonious illumination of the garden while one floor below Flos lights up the “Piazza of Light” and the “Technical Theatre” in which the quality, visual comfort and luminous performance of the Flos collections can all be put to the test. This is also the setting for revealing to the public Oplight, Jasper Morrison’s revolutionary wall light. In the Project Room, clients and architects can tap into staff expertise to develop their own lighting projects. At the launch, the display window will house a spectacular installation dedicated to Coordinates by Michael Anastassiades that will be presented in its highly sought-after Argent finish. In addition, there will be a special edition of Parentesi, a unique, 50th-anniversary celebration of Achille Castiglioni and Pio Manzù’s masterpiece.
Scandinavian design by Louis Poulsen joins D Studio by way of lamps that give light new form. There are decorative and architectural lighting solutions, for both indoor and outdoor settings incorporated in classic and innovative designs: every feature of the Danish brand will be represented from the display window on the ground floor up towards to the “Piazza of Light”. Louis Poulsen’s lower-ground floor Light Room provides an immersive space in which expert staff members can demonstrate how harmonious light solutions, interlinked with a top-rate lighting project, can change one’s perception of space. It also provides an opportunity to celebrate 50 years of Panthella by Verner Panton in yet unseen finishes and versions.
Louis Poulsen will also be introducing some entirely new iconic designs. During the opening week, they will be joined by the Danish rising star designer, Anne Boysen, who will present her new modern design icon, Moonsetter. New extensions to the popular Patera family of pendant lamps will also be introduced by designer Øivind Slaatto himself. Furthermore, Louis Poulsen has collaborated with the award-winning Japanese design house, nendo, on the new NJP Mini table lamp – a much awaited family extension. At display will also be the collaboration with renowned BIG Ideas on the Keglen family – now introducing both table, floor, pendant and wall versions for a seamless and full interior solution. Louis Poulsen will also bring a few new iconic outdoor lighting designs to Milan, by showcasing extensions that makes existing bestseller designs relevant to a broader, more residential audience, with Bysted Garden and AJ Garden (design by Arne Jacobsen). Last, but not least, two of Louis Poulsen’s much celebrated Danish ‘house designers’; Vilhelm Lauritzen and lighting philosophy design-genius, Poul Henningsen, will contribute with reintroductions of iconic heritage designs - with the VL Studio family, and the PH whole numbers pendants, the PH 80 floor lamp, as well as this year’s limited edition; PH 2/2 The Question Mark.
