Brera Design District

“Be Human: Designing with empathy”

Knowing the users deeply is always the starting point when designing a product. Empathy, is the ability to put oneself in someone else’s shoes and understand his/her needs before creating solutions, is key for the work of a designer. In a more and more digitalised present and in a future dominated by artificial intelligence, empathy will be a scarce resource representing a factor of success for products and services: no robots will ever be able to replace it.

In this view, this year the Lezioni di Design award was given to Constance Gennari, founder – together with Marianne Gosset – and creative director of The Socialite Family, a platform that by telling personal stories reveals daily objects and places connecting design with the lifestyle of contemporary families.

This year the ambassadors of BDD, all present with a project within the borders of BDD, are talents who believe in the emotional side of design and in the empathy between objects, places and people. Cristina Celestino, with her delicate, emotional, evocative aesthetic and design vision, combines her architectural background with a fine personal taste for beauty. Another of the female ambassadors is Elena Salmistraro, who puts the artistic aspect at the core to raise sensations and feed the soul through design as well as to convey her poetic inspiration. Finally, the third ambassador is Daniele Lago, who has always considered design as the planning of experiences and was the first to change the patterns of design with Appartamento LAGO, founded in Brera in 2009 – and proposed again today – symbol of the interaction between project, product and people.

Again this year, in the setting of Brera Design Apartment (via Palermo 1 – free entry from April 17th to April 22nd  from 12 a.m. to 7 p.m.), something special was organised, designed and realised by independent curator Raffaella Guidobono: Souvenir Milano. The rooms of this typical Milanese house develop a path that focuses on design and fine craftsmanship showing the new collections of Maddalena Selvini, Stories_of_Italy, Agustina Bottoni, Cynthia Vilchez Castiglioni, Sour design for Bottega Nove and Leftover for StudioF. Set up in partnership with the companies present in the Brera Design Apartment including Vitra, Bulthaup, Davide Groppi, Saba and Agape, the interiors host out-of-scale furnishings and coverings, hand-made objects resulting from artisanal processes carried out in the Italian districts of Nove and Murano with old techniques still used nowadays: sandblasting, chamfering, melting and drilling to make unique elements.

12 designers were invited to create a new piece for the launch of Souvenir Milano, the first collection of objects that takes the city as a symbol, Souvenir Milano offers the view of new icons of the city signed by Stories_of_Italy, Maddalena Selvini, Cynthia Vilchez Castiglioni, Agustina Bottoni, Astrid Luglio, Sara Ricciardi, Giulio Ceppi, Giovanna Carboni, Sour for Bottega Nove, Leftover for StudioF, Giulio Iacchetti and Gio Tirotto.

The Brera Design Night will be on friday (20th of april) with special events throughout the district and showrooms open until midnight.