This Salone del Cell sales space will turn out to be a public rest room for girls in Zambia

The Salone del Cell could also be important to the industrial ecosystem of the design business, however it isn’t an particularly sustainable occasion. In accordance with the report Milan Design (Eco) System, printed yearly by the Politecnico di Milano, the furnishings truthful produces 13.12 kilograms of waste for each sq. metre of exhibition area on the Rho Fiera, the place it’s held. It’s a staggering determine, not just for its environmental toll, but additionally as a result of a lot of it may very well be prevented merely by means of smarter design.

It’s an issue that Enrico Magistro, founding father of QuadroDesign – the Italian model identified for its pared-back stainless-steel faucets – sought to handle when he invited the Milan-based designer Giacomo Moor to design the corporate’s sales space for the 2026 version. Magistro had seen Moor’s collection of easy-to-assemble wood furnishings developed for the LiveinSlums initiative in Nairobi and was struck by its potential to evolve into an architectural system.

From Salone del Cell sales space to social-impact construction in Zambia

‘He wished to create a pavilion that will have a second life as soon as the truthful was over,’ explains Moor, who has devised a light-weight modular construction that might be dismantled and shipped to Masala, Zambia, the place it is going to be put in by the social-impact firm Koalisation as a public restroom at an area charcoal market. ‘It’s a market that’s predominantly run by ladies, who typically carry their kids to the office,’ Moor says of the open-air bazaar, which beforehand lacked satisfactory sanitation amenities. ‘So it is going to be geared up with showers and altering areas for youngsters.’

Identified for bridging design, structure and carpentry by means of his multidisciplinary Milan studio, Moor approached the problem with a system-oriented eye. He developed a modular timber grid primarily based round a customized aluminium four-way connector that permits the construction to be dismantled, rebuilt and reconfigured for various makes use of. ‘We wished to create a really replicable system, even in sociocultural contexts totally different from ours, the place they may not have the identical equipment,’ he explains. Standardised wood parts slot into the joint to create a light-weight structural lattice that may develop horizontally and vertically, whereas panels – used as partitions, shelving or roofing – might be added or eliminated relying on the context.

‘The sales space on the truthful might be very ethereal, very gentle, with the addition of colored panels that present a graphic clarification of the challenge,’ Moor advised us of the momentary pavilion, which presents a teaser choice from his Thumb assortment – initially conceived for the kitchen and now evolving into the lavatory – alongside the Hum vary designed by Philippe Malouin, and a set of latest stools by NM3.

‘In Africa, alternatively, the structure turns into extra closed and practical, as a result of it additionally wants to permit customers moments of privateness.’ The true problem, he provides, was making certain that neither function compromised the opposite. ‘Essentially the most sophisticated half was designing one thing able to engaging in two duties which might be so diametrically opposed – a industrial exhibition area on one hand, and a completely functioning restroom on the opposite – with out sacrificing both.’

Salone del Cell, Worldwide Lavatory Exhibition | Corridor 06 | Stand B41