At Milan Design Week 2022 with LAND

During the Milan Design Week, a small green oasis located in Via Varese anticipates, in the very heart of the city, the events taking place just a few kilometres away at the former Expo 2015 area, where a major transformation is taking place. The intervention, developed thanks to a public-private partnership between Arexpo and Lendlease, an international real estate group specialising in infrastructure and urban regeneration, covers an area of over one million square metres. The MIND project thus aims to create a sustainable, carbon neutral and inclusive city of the future, where innovation can be generated collaboratively for the benefit of communities.
LAND's Urban Living, a window onto the Decumanus of MIND installation, created in collaboration with Migliore+Servetto, in fact explores the theme of the exhibition, Between Space and Time, through the concept of "meanwhile uses". This, beginning with the question of how can design, landscape, art and culture anticipate and accompany change in the city, becoming tools capable of managing the development of spaces, mirroring society, its inhabitants and the multiple uses they make of the space.
Starting with the MIND flow installation curated by Migliore+Servetto, characterised by a strong environmental and narrative content, the initiative creates identity for a site undergoing transformation, accompanying it through its various phases, including the green islands conceived by LAND, two iconic elements that will be inserted in a parklet in Via Varese 12 during the Milan Design Week 2022.
Thus, the combination of design, branding and landscape architecture leads to the creation of a small green space, a living lawn, with potted elements, created thanks to the support of HW Style, specialists in green design, construction and maintenance. And not only: the yellow lines that characterise the installation, the urban MIND flow sign, set off from here to reach the interior of the LAND Wunderkammer exhibition space, set up for the occasion with a focus on MIND, a project whose green areas are part of the Raggi Verdi (Green Rays) system designed, back in 2003, by landscape architect Andreas Kipar.
This is a network of routes that ideally start from the geographic-symbolic centre of Milan, the well-known octagon of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, next to Piazza Duomo, to reach the parks of the urban belt, through connections involving existing green areas. The Raggi Verdi are a project capable of generating a vital and permeable system for the Lombardy metropolis which, internally, requires dynamic flows. But above all, it cannot and must not relegate natural spaces to mere accessory elements, relying on them as integral parts of urban master plans and future planning.
The Urban Living installation thus brings the elements of MIND's Decumanus into the city centre, demonstrating the great value of a temporary contribution to Milan's transition towards a greener and more sustainable future.
A series of thematic events will be held on the LAND studio terrace in Via Varese 16, to be streamed on Floornature's Facebook channel (https://www.facebook.com/floornaturecom), as media partner of the event, and will explore the different facets of meanwhile uses, ranging from design to communication.

Christiane Bürklein

Urban Living, a window onto the Decumanus of MIND
Installation: project LAND - Roberta Filippini, Erica Boncaldo
Flow Intervention: Migliore+Servetto
Landscaping: HW Style
Location: Via Varese, Milan
Year: from June 6 to 12, 2022
Photos: Francesca Macis