casa blond opens house of creative curiosity at milan design week 2023

casa blond pops-up at milan design week 2023

blond, the strategically-focused and sustainably-led consultancy, welcomes visitors to casa blond during Milan Design Week 2023. The pop-up residency in Brera diverges from the trend of AI generation in favor of provoking real, emotional creative curiosities and collaboration in a home-like setting. Obscure yet inspiring objects fill cabinet displays, a Marcel Breuer-inspired plywood chair, and new innovations of domestic appliances and accessories furnish the spazios.

Be welcomed as a house guest to casa blond between April 17 to 23, 2023 – pre-register here.

An after-hours ‘house party’ will also be held at casa blond on April 18, from 18.00 to 22.30 – ticketing here.

James Melia, Founder and Creative Director of blond, at the manufacturing of the Peel Chair

All images courtesy of blond

After a decade-plus of experiences in agencies across London, UK, James Melia founded the strategic consultancy in 2015 to unpeel a problem’s layers of complexity and uncover new opportunities. This is realized with a thorough research and design methodology with three steps to understand client and user needs: discover, design and implement. Sustainability drives the focus of their designers, rather than styling. The use of conscious design considers the social, economic and environmental impact of their work.

‘Conscious design resonates through everything blond does,’ begins James Melia, Founder and Creative Director of blond, in an interview with designboom. ‘The philosophy is an elaboration of Dieter Rams’ 10 principles of good design. These have been extended and then simplified into three main pillars: usefulness of an object, its purpose and positive impact on the user’s life; deliberateness in its design to tell a story without superfluous, styling details; and awareness to be timeless in our world. If we are conscious of our surroundings, people’s problems and how to solve them, ultimately blond can design better products and experiences.’

The design takes inspiration from natural bark peeling from trees, but also references the iconic work of Marcel Breuer

blond reveals plywood Peel Chair

Debuting in casa blond at Milan Design Week 2023, the consultancy reveals a pure and simplified version of an archetype piece of furniture, the self-initiated Peel Chair. The design takes inspiration from natural bark peeling from trees – hence its name – but also references the timeless, iconic plywood work of Marcel Breuer. The chair illustrates an illusion as if constructed from a singular sheet of formed plywood – a low cost material with minimal waste. Instead, the panes of its backrest, legs and seat come together seamlessly to create a continuous line, especially in its side profile.

‘The Peel Chair has been manufactured in an old but relatively complicated process. Lots of thin strips of wood veneer are laid in a specific manner to create the structure with the integrity needed. We achieved simplicity in a product that is regularly over designed. We did this by focusing on one particular detail of the chair – its continuous curved profile,’ reveals James.

The chair appears as if constructed from a singular sheet of formed plywood to create a continuous line

artefacts inspire cabinet of collaborative curiosities

Visitors continue through the casa to encounter a display of obscure, unusual objects collected by the consultancy’s designers. This cabinet of curiosities, called blond artefacts, demonstrates their belief in the primacy of inspiration from the tangible world. Guests are invited to find offline inspiration from real objects. New ideas can be sketched, with designs selected during the festival to be brought to life using rapid prototyping 3D printers. The credited item will then join the display the following day.

‘Our designers purchased unusual objects each month for the previous half a year. Every first Monday of the month, we would see the new collection and vote to keep the most inspiring object. The 10 final items communicate their respective key information like materials, manufacturing processes and history.’ blond’s Founder and Creative Director continues to add, ‘artefacts is a reaction to the world of artificial intelligence, where people are ideating by using AI to draw inspiration from other objects and then generate concepts. Instead, our interactive design sessions enable original thoughts to actually deliver realistic, manufacturable and emotional products. Visitors can react by posting notes with comments or even new ideas.’

A cabinet of curiosities, called blond artefacts, demonstrates the agency’s inspiration from the tangible world

spazios for blond, Tesoro and Impluse

casa blond encourages visitors to explore four interlinking spazios that showcase products of today’s home, including the Peel Chair and blond artefacts. The final two rooms exhibit the work of blond for startup clients; Tesoro and Impulse.

At casa blond, Tesoro debuts a 40 scent-strong collection of refillable and recyclable candles

Tesoro aims to be the world’s first carbon negative homeware brand. To solve the landfills of empty containers, the British company debuts a 40 scent-strong collection of refillable and recyclable candles. Aluminum refill bodies can suspend inside homeware vessels of a variety of sizes, volumes and shapes. Visitors will encounter Tesoro’s first retail product along with prototypes showing how the universal refill system supports vessels made in a range of materials. Further prototypes will reveal the direction of future products, including refillable reed and electric diffusers.

Aluminum refill bodies can suspend inside homeware vessels of a variety of sizes, volumes and shapes

Impulse is a US-based hardware startup on a mission to accelerate home electrification with battery-integrated appliances. It previews its battery-integrated induction stove that introduces dramatic performance improvements, removes common installation barriers, and ingeniously adds energy storage to the grid. Raised burners not only prevent damage to the information-rich screen but also maximize space for the embedded battery.

Impulse previews its battery-integrated induction stove designed by blond

‘Impulse and Tesoro have commissioned design work from blond. It makes sense, firstly, to present our clients’ products for the home in the exhibition in Milan to support their success, and, secondly, they all contribute to this casa feeling. We hope to invite other brands into a home-like setting in future years,’ confirms James Melia, Founder and Creative Director of blond, in an interview with designboom.

blond represents the high level of innovation in the battery-integrated induction stove through the industrial and UI design