On the occasion of Milan’s Design Week 2009, and in collaboration with Japanese brand Green Capsule and website Stylesquare, Aliantedizioni is presenting a fascinating installation entitled BIOFOLLIE. This will confront the theme of a possible curious mix that could occur in the near future between the vegetal and artificial worlds, to decorate the home or even the person. Results from recent research in applied biology have in fact allowed the perfecting of a new, high-performance compost that means the achievement of natural cultivation in very limited spaces, or even micro-cultivation in an area just a bit bigger than that occupied by the seed itself. Considering people’s increasing desire to be surrounded by plants, and the ever smaller spaces available in contemporary homes, the following products will be presented before an international public for the first time:

GREEN CAPSULE, the world’s smallest garden. This is a matter of a truly mini “grow kit” that contains a portable, even wearable transparent capsule, 4 types of seeds and a bag of high-performance ROOF SOIL. Thanks to this special loam, the seed sprouts inside the capsule that is just 4cm high, until it constitutes a sort of transportable decorative vegetal element, alive and growing. A convenient hook fitted to its apex even allows the capsule to become, at the owner’s choice, a pendant, earring, or trinket to fix on to a handbag or mobile phone, for a total duration of approximately 10 days, when you would have to open the capsule and transplant the shoot into a larger vase.

MEGAFUNGHI, a series of table and floor vases in borosilicate glass designed by Alessandro Loschiavo. They consist in a transparent base available in two heights, on to which it is possible to slot in 3 types of containers to hold various botanical species. The three containers have different shapes: an elongated phial for long-stemmed flowers; a funnel closed at the bottom; a sort of tumbler whose edge develops a disc shape parallel to the soil to form a circular small table. Thanks to the transparency of the material, all three always have their contents on show, including any roots, following a logic that every aspect of the natural development should be visible. The mounted vases look like artificial, apparently crystallized giant mushrooms (megafunghi!).

PAGANINI Milano, an evocative space in the heart of the city characterized by natural materials and elements, will accommodate the installation created in collaboration with Kumi Matsuda and Giovanni Mastronardi. It will be an unusual vegetal setting, ever developing. A small family of Megafunghi will contain the seeds enclosed in Green Capsules and will represent their growth to the point of flowering maturity. The dialogue between nature and the artificial will be exalted by the play on the transparencies and reflections of the materials fused with the shades of the metamorphosing flora.

The folks from STYLESQUARE, a website for gathering information on design and international style in 12 languages and with more than 60,000 visitors monthly, will offer a cocktail to journalists present on the evening of the inauguration: Tuesday, April 21, at 6 p.m.