The Glitch Camp 2025 – Courtesy of IED Milano.

Design. Inclusive is a precious term and a fundamental concept for even greater missions. While working on our Milan Design Week report, we encountered it hundreds of times. This would be very encouraging if not for the fact that the word has been used so much in so many unnecessary contexts that its great value has been diluted. Inclusive light displays? Inclusive bathtubs? And even inclusive cereal packages… This led to a sincere question: Is Milan Design Week truly inclusive?

• RELATED STORIES: Read more about Milan Design Week 2025 on Archipanic.

BASE Milano 2019 – Courtesy of BASE Milano.

Despite the hype, woke, and marketing, Milan Design Week always fosters many inspiring projects, exhibits, and events promoting a fair, accessible, and equal vision for a better and more inclusive future. They give voice to minorities, bolster local communities, and enable exhibitors and budget-conscious visitors to engage. Design districts and platforms—starting from the Salone Satellite at the fair—empower diversity and give voice to the next generation of design lovers. However, concerning figures prompted reflection.

The average weekly expense for a two-bedroom apartment during Milan Design Week is 4,570€, according to a survey by real estate company Abitare Co. In the Brera Design District, the price tag is 880€ per day. Isola Design District is the least expensive, with a 3,200€ weekly budget. Inclusive?

Tortona Rocks 2022. Opificio 31, main entrance – Courtesy of Tortona Rocks.

IED Design School has set up Glitch Camp, a free urban camping site in a football field at the Enrico Cappelli sports centre and on the roof terrace of Base Milano. The initiative aims to make the city more accessible to 500 students and under 30 designers from all over the world. Not the solution to the issue, but the right spirit to trigger change.

The Glitch Camp 2025 – Courtesy of IED Milano.

Can we then talk about Design Gentrification? The current design-week model is unsustainable, as revealed by the CIVICITY project by the Nieuwe Instituut with the Milanese association cheFare and the Embassy and Consulate-General of the Netherlands in Italy. “Design Weeks increasingly contribute to local pollution, rising living costs, housing crises, social inequality, and overtourism.” Dutch designer Pete Fung and Studio-Method have been invited to spend two months in Milan’s urban, social, environmental, and cultural ecosystems to develop site-specific design strategies that critique, reimagine, or address the impact of Milan Design Week on pressing urban issues.

CIVICITY is curated by Collective Works – Courtesy of the Nieuwe Instituut.

For more information and to view the designers’ final projects, head to Villa Bagatti Valsecchi, one of the stunning locations for Alcova in the village of Varedo within Milan’s metropolitan area. This year, a costly 25€ ticket allows visitors to explore the Modernist Villa Borsani. Typically, exhibitions during Milan Design Week are free of charge and accessible to all. Is this choice inclusive? The organisers explained that the decision was made to address overcrowding and protect the venue’s fragile and precious heritage.

Villa Borsani – Photo by Piero Sorgetti, courtesy of Alcova.

“Villa Borsani can hold up to 70 people at a time. And we need to handle about 100,000,” said Alcova co-founder Valentina Ciuffi in an interview with Elle Decor Italy. “And then there’s also a cost issue. You can’t adequately filter such a large audience while at the same time having to facilitate those who are in the industry or those who are journalists, making it easier for them to get in.” Due to overcrowding, last year’s exhibitors couldn’t properly engage with their key contacts. “Along with that is the idea to add more value to the event, making it clear that we especially want to include those who really care to be there at the event.”

Villa Borsani – Photo by Piergiorgio Sorgetti, courtesy of Alcova.

Alcova was set to launch its temporary design bar, Vocla, in a former slaughterhouse hosting the Macao independent cultural hub. Described by the organisers as “a hybrid space for gastronomy and design,” the bar would have transformed the historic venue into an accessible and open-to-all convivial meeting space in collaboration with luxury furniture brand Henge, featuring a haute-cuisine restaurant and artistic installations. However, residents and activists perceived this initiative as the nth gentrification effort masked as an exclusive cultural event disconnected from the neighbourhood vibe and history and reclaimed the space. Vocla will move to a different site on Via Molise 68.

Is Milan Design Week truly inclusive? Not that truly, maybe. Quite, perhaps. Still a great platform to deliver meaningful messages to the design community and beyond. We hope creativity and great ideas win.

Ex Macelli di Milano.