Earthic Lab by design studio Formafantasma at Milan Design Week 2024 questions luxury by rethinking process and production. Meet the design duo
Formafantasma wants to questions the concept of luxury with Earthic Lab. Staged within the historic walls of Teatro Gerolamo during Fuorisalone as part of this year’s Milan Design Week, the dynamic installation challenges the viewer to look beyond mere surface beauty in design by instead turning the gaze to ethical and ecological modes of process and production.
Working with Cosentino, manufacturer of sustainable surfaces for design and architecture projects, Formafantasma has turned waste into beauty. The design studio has set about to intelligently rethink what we consider junk as repurposed and reimagined within the design and production process.
For instance, debris collected from Cosentino’s manufacturing processes are used in the production of surfaces featured in Earthic Lab, while used cooking oil from the company’s kitchen helps with making of the resin, and the white fragments on the surfaces—the aesthetic parts—are composed of recycled glass and PET, as in recycled plastics. Even the chosen color palette of restrained greys and dark green requires less resin than if the team had opted for lighter and brighter shades.
This isn’t a vanity project either. The installation in Milan introduces a sub-brand and a research platform within Cosentino dedicated to investigating how the company could make their processes generally more sustainable.
Since founding their practice in 2009, and through their studios in Milan and Rotterdam, Italian designers Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin have examined ways in which design can impact positively on the world. With projects that range from furniture and lighting design, to installations and research-based initiatives, and collaborating with various global industries and institutions, Formafantasma’s work continuously pushes the boundaries of design and instigates critical thinking about the role design and objects play in our societies.
I caught up with Trimarchi and Farresin prior to their show in Milan to understand more about the Cosentino project, as well as get a feel for their approach to design now and in the future.
Earthic Lab offers a new perspective on the world of surfaces.
