‘Wood You Believe?’ installation by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati and Italo Rota for Gruppo Saviola – All images ©CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati.
Design, Architecture – Coinciding with its 60th anniversary, Gruppo Saviola participates in the Salone del Mobile for the first time with an installation created by Carlo Ratti Associati and Italo Rota. Titled Wood You Believe?, the installation consists of a cubical structure wrapped by scrapped wooden desks, chairs, pallets, fruit crates, and other wooden objects, all stacked together, recreating what one would see in a wood recycling facility. These three-dimensional collages serve as a reminder of the colossal amount of waste produced by the furniture industry.
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“The use-and-dispose consumption pattern is one of the main underlying causes of the environmental problems we are facing now,” says Carlo Ratti, founding partner of CRA – Carlo Ratti Associati and director of the MIT Senseable City Lab. “Wood You Believe? taps into an enormous pool of resources that have always been available to us. With the support of digital technologies, what was made redundant becomes something to treasure.”
Passing through the portal, visitors are transported into an immersive space constructed out of more than one hundred panels from the brand’s trademarked ‘pannello ecologico’ technology. Made of fully recycled wood, these panels are digitally treated to display a wide range of textured finishes that complement different design typologies. Using artificial intelligence tools, CRA and Rota generated an abstract landscape highlighting the product’s design potential.
‘Wood You Believe?’ installation by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati and Italo Rota for Gruppo Saviola – Photo by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati.
Gruppo Saviola was ahead of its time when it started producing ecological panels from recycled wood in the 1990s. Its decades-long endeavor culminates in the installation at Salone del Mobile 2023, which imagines future scenarios in interior design. The project will be exhibited at Fiera Milano – Pavilion 10, C04 – between April 18 and 23, 2023.
“Our collaboration with Gruppo Saviola shows that design aspires to reduce waste and is simultaneously inspired by it,” says Italo Rota. “The catalyst behind the monumental pavilion facade is a desire to salvage nature through the use of advanced artificial devices.”
- Images: courtesy of CRA – Carlo Ratti Associati.
