THE WALK FOR WORKPLACE3.0

Salone del Mobile. Milano 2015, Fiera Milano, Rho

by Michele De Lucchi
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WORKING WHILE WALKING

 

 

It is rightful to believe in philosophy; and philosophy was born while people were walking.

Living, working, producing, discussing, deciding and evolving only makes sense if you know where you are going. You also need to know that your destination is worth reaching, no matter it’s place or goal.

Certainly the first goal of every living being is survival, but for a long time man has sought a more wholesome and attractive reason to exist.

George Bataille shows that, even during the ancient times of the Lascaux Caves, someone took the time to draw on the walls dissociating him/herself from the mundane problems of finding food, seeking warmth and defending themselves. We are, and probably we will always be in this situation. So we need to find time to continue to look for a more compelling, more rewarding and more significant reason to keep walking on the surface of this planet.

 

 

The office is a type of “Lascaux Cave” where man collects the messages of his time and processes them to have more reasons and arguments rather than merely to have more money, more success or more personal fulfillment.

However the most important thing is not to stand still. In the office it is far more important to move rather than remain stationary.

This is why the landscape has always had a fundamental role in the creation of the office.

The office gives us the sense that we are a part of an ongoing evolution.

 

THE WALK

WHILE WALKING THE LANDASCAPE CHANGES CONTINUOUSLY

 

«It’s more important the walk from the entrance to the desk, or from the meeting to the next meeting.» Michele De Lucchi, 2015

 

AREAS

FOUR DISTINCT WAYS OF BEING IN THE OFFICE

 

1. THE CLUB

SOCIAL CONTACT & EXCHANGE

The Club is a place:

 

●               Where to feel like being in a hotel lobby

●               Where to feel like being in an airline lounge

●               Where to feel like being in a London club

●               Where to feel like being in a golf club house

●               Where to have a coffee

●               Where to wait without loosing time

●               Where to become unpredictable

●               Where to meet unpredictable people

●               Where to face unexpected topics

●               Where to exercise your capability

                  of improvisation

●               Where to look for something you don’t know yet

●               Where to listen to private conversations

●               Where space is informal

●               Where to look to other people

●               Where to show yourself

 

 

2. FREE MAN

INDIVIDUAL WORK AND TEAM WORK, SMALL MEETING ROOMS

Free Man is a place:

 

●               Where you feel like being

                  in an urban environment

●               Where to be alone

●               Where to work within yourself

●               Where you are not to be disturbed

●               Where you don’t disturb

●               Where to challenge the capability

                  of being independent

●               Where to explore who you really are

●               Where to feel protected

●               Where to feel isolated

●               Where to look for intimacy

●               Where intimacy becomes important

●               Where to meet a person in private

●               Where to look into somebody’s eyes

 

 

3. AGORÀ

CONFERENCE ROOM AND AUDITORIUM

Agorà is a place:

 

●               Where you feel like being in a theater

●               Where special events are organized

●               Where to seat and receive information and stimuli

●               Where to participate and exchange views

●               Where to participate and meet with colleagues

●               Where to hold a conference

●               Where to attend a conference

●               Where to talk to a public audience

●               Where to listen to what people say

●               Where to present your thoughts and ideas

●               Where to get to know what people think

●               Where to express yourself

●               Where to know what is changing

●               Where to feel a sense of community

 

 

4. LABORATORY

CREATIVE PROCESS & COMMUNICATION

Laboratory is a place:

 

●               Where the environment looks like

                  a medieval village

●               Where to create and to make documents

●               Where to create and to make 3D representations and prototypes

●               Where to create and to craft images

●               Where to create softwares and applications

●               Where to work with your hands

●               Where to do and to learn

●               Where to explore and invent

●               Where to explore the use of tools

                  and instruments

●               Where to display tools and instruments

●               Where to display your thoughts,

                  ideas and creations

●               Where everybody can be updated

●               Where different processes create

                  a community

 

 

THE WALK TO CONNECT WITH NATURE, THE WALK AS COMPLICITY WITH ART, THE WALK AS "BELVEDERE"

 

The concept of Permaculture works very well when applied to agriculture, but it works equally well when applied to human culture. The same effect of hybridization and contamination that we see in plants and animals in uncultivated brush happens in the thought and creativity in those areas that donít fall directly under specific disciplines or categories of knowledge, and these uncultivated spaces, though perhaps ugly to look at (I would maintain that theyíre no ugly at all!), are vibrant and rich. An office could be something along these lines, a space left deliberately uncultivated in order to make the most fertile seeds germinate.

 

 

CONNECTING WITH NATURE

 

●               Where you place your feet on the planet

●               Where you hear the noise of the wildness

●               Where you see the seasons change

●               Where you feel the day passing by

●               Where you can be conscious about what we have

●               Where you recognize the beauty of the universe

●               Where to be bitten by mosquitos

●               Where to smell flowers

●               Where to water small plants

●               Where to see a seed become a tomato

●               Where to see the effects of hybridization

 

 

COMPLICITY WITH ART

 

●               Where you look for different perspectives

●               Where art stimulates all our senses

●               Where art connects past, present, future

●               Where art connects the natural and the technological

●               Where everything looks different from every point

●               Where art has no limits

●               Where art connects people

●               Where to challenge your imagination

 

 

THE BELVEDERE

 

●               Where to look at everything from an elevated point of view

●               Where to put things into a different perspective

●               Where to dream of new ideas

●               Where to have unexpected encounters

●               Where to look to afar

●               Where to look back to where you have come from

●               Where to look to where you are going

 

 

THE WALK FOR WORKPLACE3.0

14 - 19 April 2015

Salone del Mobile. Milano 2015, Fiera Milano, Rho

 

Project

Michele De Lucchi

 

Project director

Nic Bewick

 

Project team

Davide Angeli

Marco De Santi

Francesco Garofoli

Giovanna Latis

Maddalena Molteni

Greta Rosset

 

Client

Federlegno Arredo Eventi SpA

 

Location

Salone del Mobile. Milano 2015, Fiera Milano, Rho

 

Chronology

2014 - in progress

 

 

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    • Michele De Lucchi

      Michele De Lucchi

      Architect

      Milan / Italy

      Michele De Lucchi was born in Ferrara in 1951. After graduating from the School of Architecture in Florence, he worked as a teaching assistant for Adolfo Natalini. At the time, he came into contact with the radical design movement and founded the Cavart group, gaining him notoriety and boosting his future career. He then moved to Milan, where he became friends with Ettore Sottsass, with whom he worked in one of the most representative groups of 1980s post-modernism. The Memphis group was a collective committed to creating a new language by playing with the recovery of 1970s kitsch elements favouring plastic and laminated materials, with a clear bent for rational industrial production. De Lucchi also took part in other significant collective experiences at the time, like Centrokappa and Alchimia. Thanks to Ettore Sottsass, starting in 1979, De Lucchi began his collaboration with Olivetti as a design consultant for Syntesis in Massa. Then, in 1984, he went to Ivrea, becoming the head of the Olivetti design office from 1988 to 2002. In parallel to his work with Olivetti, the architect continued to work independently. He won such prestigious commissions as the design of the Deutsche Bank and Poste Italiane offices, and Intesa San Paolo, for which he was involved in the creation of the bank's credit cards, and the design of the Piazza della Scala office in Milan. In 1989, he received the prestigious Compasso d'Oro award for the Artemide "Tolomeo" lamp - the result of the concept of innovating the classic pantograph table lamp, an object created with a declared technical and functional purpose recalling the imagery of the office and design, making it an elegant and modern furnishing accessory. "Tolomeo" also refers to historic design icons like the FontanArte "Naska Loris" from 1933 and Jac Jacobsen's 1937 "Luxo" - later made famous by the Pixar logo. It was immediately destined to become a best-seller. His collaboration with Artemide led to the creation of many other lamps and the extensive Tolomeo collection. They include Castore, Dioscuri, Ipno, Logico. De Lucchi has also collaborated with Alias, De Padova, Poltrona Frau, Caimi, Glas Italia, iGuzzini, Danese and De Castelli. In 1990, he established his own brand, Produzione Privata, to create furnishing complements and accessories. He did not abandon his activity as a designer, which involved him in exhibition and museum design, for example, for the Neues Museum in Berlin. He also restored the Design Museum at the Triennale in Milan and the former Agip service station in Piazzale Accursio in Milan. Starting in 2017, Michele De Lucchi was editor-in-chief of Domus magazine with an editorial line characterised by a mix of disciplines and content ranging from Design to Philosophy, and the constant investigation of space and objects in relation to human needs.)