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How has the pandemic impacted the interior design industry: where we were, where we are and where we will be

With previous episodes addressing workplaces and the hospitality industry, the upcoming panel discussion with Zaha Hadid Architects will explore the evolution of retail design. Hosted by SBID’s founder & CEO, Vanessa Brady, the series examines new definitions of interior space and the consequential impact on the people who commission, design and use them.

One of the fall-outs of the pandemic is undoubtedly the retail sector. The lack of access to physical spaces forced the retail industry to find new and inventive ways to communicate and distribute their goods and services in the digital landscape. Guest speakers will discuss how evolving consumer attitudes and behaviours impact the design, use and significance of retail environments.

Speakers include:

Event Details:

Topic: Interior Architecture Reconsidered (5-4-3): The future of retail

Date: Thursday 14th October

Time: 12.00pm (BST)

Duration: 1 hour

Key discussion points:

Click here to register now

Are you looking to successfully start, expand or grow your UK business in Canada?

This free webinar is designed to help your UK business understand the major market opportunities in Canada, the benefits of expanding to this market and how to overcome barriers when doing business overseas. 

International demand for UK goods and services is growing rapidly, offering a wealth of opportunities for SMEs looking to expand overseas. With a population of 37 million and the second-largest country in the world by area, Canada continues a strong trade relationship with the UK totalling £10.7 billion (ONS, 2019) in the year up to March 2019. These well-established trade links offer a secure economic foundation and multiple advantages for UK businesses looking to build an international presence.

What will you learn?

SBID Accredited CPD Event

CPD Points: 2 POINTS

Members login to SBIDPro to register

Are you looking to successfully start, expand or grow your UK business in Japan?

This free webinar is designed to help your UK business understand the major market opportunities in Japan, the benefits of expanding to this lucrative market and how to overcome barriers when doing business overseas. 

International demand for UK goods and services is growing rapidly, offering a wealth of opportunities for SMEs looking to expand overseas. Japan is a major destination for foreign trade, offering a strong economic foundation and multiple advantages for UK businesses looking to establish an international presence. 

What will you learn?

SBID Accredited CPD Event

CPD Points: 2 POINTS

Members login to SBIDPro to register

Discover how to access co-investment funding from the Department for International Trade for SMEs who want to grow into new overseas markets

The Department for International Trade and European Regional Development Fund have launched a new Internationalisation Fund for eligible SMEs based in England. The Fund provides match-funded grants between £1,000 and £9,000 to use for future business activities (subject to eligibility and availability) aimed at helping SMEs grow in new international markets.

SMEs based in England now have the opportunity to apply for the next round of funds which can be used to support eligible expenditure areas.

Why should you attend this virtual event?

At this free virtual event, our expert speakers will provide you with:

SBID Accredited CPD Event

CPD Points: 2 POINTS

Members login to SBIDPro to register

Need help sourcing and managing international partners for your UK business?

This free interactive event will effectively help you profile, identify and manage overseas agents and distributors with expert guidance. You will work through real-life challenges faced by SMEs, with tips on how to avoid common pitfalls, and hear the steps required to optimise your approach.

International agents and distributors can be a great way to build a profitable, sustainable and scalable global business. But with the added complexity of Coronavirus (COVID-19), finding, selecting and managing international partners presents a new series of challenges and potential high-risks for many SMEs.

If you are feeling overwhelmed with sourcing, negotiating or monitoring international partners and need guidance on contracts, payments, operations or more, this virtual event is for you.

What will you learn?

SBID Accredited CPD Event

CPD Points: 2 POINTS

Members login to SBIDPro to register

Are you looking to successfully start, expand or grow your UK business in Australia?

This free webinar is designed to help your UK business understand the major market opportunities in Australia with a specific focus on Sydney and Melbourne, the benefits of expanding to these lucrative markets and how to overcome barriers when doing business overseas. 

International demand for UK goods and services is growing rapidly, offering a wealth of opportunities for SMEs looking to expand overseas. Australia is a major destination for foreign trade, offering a strong economic foundation and multiple advantages for UK businesses looking to establish an international presence. 

What will you learn?

SBID Accredited CPD Event

CPD Points: 2 POINTS

Members login to SBIDPro to register

Are you ready to reach new customers, tap into new markets and boost your online sales globally? 

During this interactive virtual masterclass, industry experts will teach you how to adapt to evolving buying habits with tactics, platforms and tools you can use to optimise your website and improve your digital customer experience to drive sales.

Consumer’s buying behaviours and adoption of technology have rapidly shifted markets and industries across the globe during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Having a high-performance website and strategically engaging your customers online both nationally and internationally is proving more crucial than ever before.

This free virtual event will provide you with insights and tools to build an effective online strategy to reach more customers and increase conversions rates. 

What will you learn?

SBID Accredited CPD Event

CPD Points: 2 POINTS

Members login to SBIDPro to register

How has the pandemic impacted the interior design industry: where we were, where we are and where we will be

Following on from the last episode on the hospitality industry, the next online panel in collaboration with Zaha Hadid Architects will explore the future of the workplace. Hosted by SBID’s founder & CEO, Vanessa Brady, the series intends will continue to examine the new definitions of interior space and the consequential impact on the people who commission, design and use them.

With the two areas most affected by the pandemic being ‘work’ and ‘home’, and as their traditionally segregated contexts were challenged while the demand for a hybrid work/live space evolved, the guest speakers will address how their boundaries have blurred and what the future might hold for these fast-changing environments.

Speakers include:

Event Details:

Topic: Interior Architecture Reconsidered (5-4-3): The future of the workplace

Date: Tuesday 14th September

Time: 12.00pm (BST)

Duration: 1 hour

Key discussion points:

Click here to register now

Discover Graham & Brown’s Wallpaper & Colour of the Year 

Launching with a virtual event for press, customers, industry stakeholders on Wednesday 8th September, join Graham & Brown live from their design studio as they discuss key interior trends for the year ahead, introduce the Wallpaper of the Year and Colour of the Year 2022 and learn more about how they are extending their sustainability commitment.

Click here to join live

The special 2021 Salone del Mobile.Milano event, supersalone will open with the accent on safety, design transversality and an ambitious green commitment (avoiding 1.2 kilograms of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere by recycling the installations). It will feature more than 423 brands and 50 independent designers, 170 projects from 48 international design schools, 20 of the most influential figures on the creative scene today, 110 Compasso d’Oro award-winning chairs, five great chefs, six films selected by the MDFF and 200 trees from Forestami.

Event Details:

When: 5th – 10th September from 10am to 7pm (Friday: 10am to 4pm)
Where: Rho Milan Fairgrounds

Complimentary tickets are available for SBID Members!

Get in touch with [email protected] to register your interest.

The Salone’s digital platform will provide an opportunity to follow the events both in person and virtually, with  work on the “supersalone” going full pelt, the event is helmed by the curator Stefano Boeri, the international team of co-designers – Andrea Caputo, Maria Cristina Didero, Anniina Koivu, Lukas Wegwerth, Marco Ferrari and Elisa Pasqual of Studio Folder, along with Giorgio Donà, co-founder and director of Stefano Boeri Interiors – and the entire staff of the Salone del Mobile.Milano with huge commitment, courage and, above all, a great sense of responsibility.

“supersalone” event space

Maria Porro, President of the Salone del Mobile.Milano, had this to say: “We are pouring our hearts into organising this “supersalone” because we believe it’s crucial to go back to meeting each other, conduct relationships and see for ourselves the products that our companies have carried on creating. In 2020 we felt the lack of being able to have a collective vision on the direction of the entire sector even more keenly, and this event will allow us to find out the latest products and the prospects for the future. We took on a tough challenge with a great sense of responsibility. The issue of safety is key, and so we are working with all the regional institutions and bodies involved to ensure a totally safe experience for our exhibitors and visitors, starting with the green pass. The new Salone del Mobile.Milano platform with its palimpsest of events, live streamings and dedicated content will ensure that we can also fully involve that part of the design community that has been prevented from travelling due to the restrictions in force.”

“supersalone” event space

At “supersalone”

423 brands in all goods categories will set out their wares in four pavilions, in a committed response to the call Stefano Boeri, and the firm belief that the “supersalone” will become a symbol of a new Renaissance. The stars of the show will be increasingly innovative products, capable of fully responding to the changes inherent in the contemporary social structure, and their knock-on effects on a rapidly changing furnishing market and the individual needs of each client. Recognising the importance and the symbolic value of this “supersalone” will also be confirmed by the presence of high-ranking government and institutional authorities – first and foremost the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, on the day of the launch – testament, as always, to the fact that the Salone is one of the drivers of the Italian economy, thanks to the fertile relationship that it manages to set up between businesses, cities and regions.

The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Chiaki Yoshihara©
The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Chiaki Yoshihara©
The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Cerón López and López Velascoi©
The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Cerón López and López Velascoi©

What is so special about “supersalone”?

“The “supersalone” will be the first great Italian fair since the pandemic erupted. Super because it’s unmissable. Unmissable because it will see the great design brands, the young makers, the international schools, the great icons of design, the most renowned Italian chefs and many stars of the art and architecture scene gathered together for the first time. Unmissable because everybody will have a chance to see the top products from the top companies – live – and purchase or reserve them on the Salone del Mobile web platform. Unmissable because all the display components have been designed to be reused or recycled. Unmissable because at such a difficult time in our history we’ve mustered the courage, the passion and the generosity of the best of Italian business and creativity. “supersalone” is a cheerful response from a SuperItaly after the long night of the pandemic,” said the architect Stefano Boeri, curator of the event.

Innovation, attention to environmental impact, creativity tout court, cultural exchange, and digital experiences are the “supersalone” buzzwords. It will be an event that will draw on the power of design creativity to become a hub of experimentation and cross-pollination, a meeting place and a forger of new opportunities for reflection on the world of design and for acquainting ourselves with its protagonists – from the furnishing manufacturing system to the schools turning out the new cohorts of designers, from the independent makers to the most influential current figures in every field of design, from filmmakers who iconise the ability of design to shape worlds and tell stories to those who support and promote creativity.

The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Charlotte Krzentowski©
The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Chiaki Yoshihara©

Sustainability at the heart of the event

With circularity and sustainability uppermost, all the materials and components used in the installation designed by Andrea Caputo – long parallel sets, designed for the specific goods categories, and the communal areas such as the Food Courts, arenas and lounges designed by Stefano Boeri Interiors – have been devised in collaboration with Lukas Wegwerth to be dismantled and reused. With the onus on circularity, the installation systems, which involve no loose components and reduced amounts of material, will be completely recycled. All the chipboard panels made from 100% recycled timber will go back into the production cycle. The overall benefit from avoiding emissions of CO2 deriving from the use of post-consumer reclaimed material is a lower emissions figure of 1.125.000kg CO2eq. The same goes for the bricks used in The Lost Graduation Show installation, which are all reusable; all the arenas, benches and seating will be “dry” mounted and can therefore be disassembled and used again at different times and in different contexts.

The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Hemmo Honkanen©

Surrounded by trees

The trees supplied by Forestami will underscore the green credentials of “supersalone” with an ad hoc project that provides for a “forest” of around 100 trees through which the turnstiles at the East Gate entrance can be accessed. Another 100 tall trees will lead visitors into the various exhibition areas and living areas dedicated to relaxation. The selected trees – lime, ash, oak, flowering plum trees – will subsequently be planted in Milan’s metropolitan area.

An open space event venue with trees, exhibition spaces, screens and round red benches. Chairs displayed at the exhibition.
“supersalone” event space

Supporting new designers in difficult times

One of the special “supersalone” exhibitions will be The Lost Graduation Show, curated by Anniina Koivu, showcasing 170 projects from students who graduated between 2020 and 2021, hailing from 48 design schools in 22 different countries in all five continents. A first in the history of the Salone that will involve every sector of furniture design and more besides. Incursions into the world of mobility, inclusive, medical and sports design, research into materials and design sustainability will map out the status quo of the entire sector. An example of how the Salone del Mobile.Milano works to support design schools, promoting the latest generation of designers, narrating their enthusiasm, courage and efforts at a time when the profession is undergoing swingeing change.

The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Oneseo Choi©
The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Oneseo Choi©
The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Chiaki Yoshihara©
The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Chiaki Yoshihara©

Chairs – telling stories through design

The exhibition Take Your Seat / Prendi Posizione – Solitude and Conviviality of the Chair / Solitudine e Convivialità della Sedia, curated by Nina Bassoli in partnership with ADI / Compasso d’Oro Award, will be another major highlight. Featuring 30 Compasso d’Oro award-winning chairs and more than 80 chairs that have gained honourable mentions ranged around the four “supersalone” pavilions, the exhibition will tell the story of the most iconic of all design objects, the chair, more capable of synthesising the value of good design than any other artefact. Split into four themed sections, with the addition of an “extra” section at the ADI Design Museum – the ideal end or start point to the visit – it will illustrate just how design has harnessed languages and content throughout the great changes in society and how it has managed to respond to new cultural paradigms with new inventions.

The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Albini©

Broadening knowledge through talks and lectures

Devised by Maria Cristina Didero, the “supersalone” programme will be packed with conversations, talks and lectures by designers, architects, artists, scholars and managers from all over the world. The protagonists will endeavour to respond to a variety of questions on design, art, architecture, education, the circular economy, environmental impact, the relationship between project and curation and much more besides, in a series of dialogues and one man shows. There are many famous names among them: from Humberto Campana to Bjarke Ingels, Carsten Höller, Paola Pivi, Beatriz Colomina, Cecilia Alemani, Formafantasma and Philippe Malouin. There will be three fixed appointments every day: round tables at 12pm, talks at 3pm and lectures at 5pm. In addition to these events and in collaboration with the Milano Design Film Festival, every day at 4pm studies, biopics and docufilms will allow for crosscutting insight into design, architecture and the current social and sustainable implications. The programme includes Newmuseum(s). Stories of Company Archives and Museums by Francesca Molteni; Tokyo Ride by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine; Paradigma Olivetti by Davide Maffei; Precise Poetry. Lina Bo Bardi’s Architecture by Belinda Rukschcio and Honeyland by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov.

“supersalone” event space

Gastronomic experiences by world-renowned chefs

“supersalone” is also and especially open to cross-pollination between different spheres and languages, featuring Identità Golose Milano – International Gastronomic Hub in the event, because food is a product on the same level as any other, and has always evolved on the basis of human creativity and need. It calls for careful planning and the study of craft and industrial processes, both traditional and otherwise. It also requires a good pinch of curiosity and openness. The Identità Golose Food Court is a new bespoke concept tailormade for “supersalone,” conceived as an integral part of the visitor experience and an opportunity to savour the original recipes of some of the greatest Italian chefs and artisans, including Carlo Cracco with pastry chef Marco Pedron, Massimo Bottura with the workshop Il Tortellante, Michelin star chefs Cristina Bowerman and Matias Perdomo, Eugenio Boer, the Italo-Dutch chef renowned for the international influences that he weaves into his cuisine, as well as Renato Bosco, considered one of the greatest master of pizza, the great ice-cream maker Paolo Brunelli and Andrea Besuschio, who has been ranked among the top 10 best pastry chefs in Italy for years. Each of them will come up with an iconic dish – either sweet or savoury – that the public will be able to purchase, putting together their own ideal menus to enjoy in an informal and inclusive environment.

The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Charlie Humble Thomas©

The unification of Salone del Mobile and Triennale Milano

As per another well-established tradition being revived at this special September event, the Salone del Mobile will venture beyond the confines of the Rho Fairgrounds to underscore and valorise its deep ties with Milan and, in the spirit of increasing openness to the exchange and circulation of ideas, culture and creativity, will reinforce its dialogue with Triennale Milano, the city hub of “supersalone.” Triennale will be marking the occasion with Il Salone / La Città (The Salone / The City), an exhibition conceived by the Triennale Museum of Italian Design for the Salone del Mobile.Milano and curated by Mario Piazza. The exhibition will narrate the cultural events held in the city by the Salone that, over the years, have communicated design to its fans. A spectacular show that will draw on the archives of Triennale Milano and the Salone del Mobile.Milano.

The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Francesco Lucini©
The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Zanuso Sapper©
The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Zanuso Sapper©

Blending physical and digital to create engaging experiences

The mix of digital and in-person presence will make for a thoroughly engaging experience and allow those unable to be physically present to observe the products on exhibit, visit the exhibitions virtually and attend the talks and lectures. The Salone del Mobile.Milano platform has been designed to promote the design on exhibit with original content and medium-specific language, and to put the user at the centre of the event before, during and after their visit. The exhibition spaces and themed itineraries will dialogue with the platform in a wholly original manner, allowing the products to be observed and reserved for purchase. These are the digital crossroads that will create new forms of integration and interconnection between different worlds, users and markets.

The Lost Graduation Show. Project Credit: Elias Antonson©

“supersalone” will be all this and much more – a special project through which the Salone del Mobile.Milano intends to serve as a promoter of and catalyst for activities, thoughts and feelings that will allow the entire sector and the supply chain as a whole to breathe life into a new Renaissance.

About Salone del Mobile
Launched in Milan in 1961 as a vehicle for promoting Italian exports of furnishing and accessories, the Salone Internazionale del Mobile is the global benchmark event for the furnishing and design sector.

If you’d like to feature your product news here, get in touch to find out more. 

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