At the Salone del Mobile 2026, the projects developed for Vanità & Casa, Vanità Living, and PAA demonstrate three complementary approaches to design: through the object, through space, and through the ability to create a recognizable and enduring identity.
Every year, the Salone del Mobile imposes a special test on design. It’s not enough for an object to be well-designed, it’s not enough for a stand to be well-constructed, it’s not even enough for a brand to have a clear and recognizable presence. At the fair, all of this is subjected to a more demanding test: the ability to combine form, perception, and meaning in a space saturated with stimuli, comparisons, and competing languages. It is at this point that design ceases to be a simple intention and becomes an experience.
The works I’m presenting at the Salone del Mobile 2026 are born precisely from this awareness. They don’t belong to a single register, but move on multiple levels, between product design, art direction, and spatial construction. On the one hand, there are the projects for Vanità & Casa and Vanità Living, in which the theme of the stand isn’t approached as a mere display, but as a perceptive device capable of building identity, rhythm, and atmosphere. On the other, there’s the dialogue with the product: Key Round, Metrica, and Infinity aren’t isolated episodes, but objects that find their voice within a broader system of relationships, materials, lights, colors, and expectations.
In the project for Vanità & Casa, the space is inspired by a use of blue that doesn’t simply reiterate a brand color, but transforms it into a narrative. The gradient that rises from the light of the floor to the darker upper part creates a perceptual journey from innovation to elegance. Even the presence of nature, interpreted within this same chromatic register, is not decorative, but discreetly introduces the theme of sustainability as a concrete focus on the quality of products and their place in the world. Key Round fits into this context, not seeking to overwhelm the space, but rather harmonizing with it through rigor, clarity, and restraint.
For Vanità Living, the stand design moves in a different yet equally precise direction. Here, the space is conceived as a small architecture of perception, where light, color, and rhythm do not serve as a backdrop to the objects, but rather construct their meaning. In this context, Metrica takes shape, a new presence that finds its natural place in the stand. Some products, in fact, cannot be understood merely as isolated figures: they require distance, an atmosphere, a balanced relationship with the environment to truly convey their character. It is at this intersection between object and space that the design begins to speak with greater precision.
With Infinity for PAA, the conversation shifts to the theme of identity as duration. The collection is born from the encounter between Nordic clarity and Italian restraint, seeking a form of balance capable of avoiding both emphasis and neutrality. In this project, the bathroom is conceived as a place of respite: not a spectacular space, but a space capable of offering a break from stress, the toil of daily life, and the constant pressure that accompanies contemporary life. Wellness, here, does not coincide with the abundance of signs, but with the quality of silence, the presence of matter, and the calm of proportion.
Guardati insieme, questi progetti mostrano per me un punto essenziale: il design non coincide mai con il solo disegno dell’oggetto. Anche quando si manifesta in una forma precisa e compiuta, il progetto porta sempre con sé una costruzione più ampia, che riguarda il modo in cui quell’oggetto viene percepito, compreso, desiderato, abitato. Per questo il Salone del Mobile resta un luogo così importante: non soltanto perché rende visibili i prodotti, ma perché rende evidente la qualità delle relazioni che il progetto ha saputo costruire tra brand, spazio, materia e persone.
Ultimately, this is precisely the most interesting challenge. Not simply presenting novelties, but shaping coherent experiences, in which product, space, and identity don’t proceed separately, but rather work together to construct a comprehensible vision. When this happens, the project takes on a deeper presence: it stops demanding attention and begins, more quietly, to deserve it.