From post-consumer aluminium to a mediation about rocks, here’s a roundup of five talks and projects that bring circularity into focus. Add them to your Milan Design Week schedule.
Photo: Courtesy of Hydro
R100
Hydro
How does one mine aluminium from a city? After launching the world’s first 100% post-consumer aluminium at Milan Design Week 2024, Hydro brings the work of five designers to life using only post-consumer scrap collected within a 100-km radius – and restricting the production processes to that radius as well. By limiting the production radius whilst giving the designers carte blanche, the company ensured that the material is fully traceable and that the project as a whole ‘mirrors a real-life use-case’, said Asle Forsbak, director of marketing and communications at Hydro Extrusions.
When: 8-13 April 2025
Where: Capsule Plaza, Spazio Maiocchi, Via Achille Maiocchi, 7, Milan
Photo: Pierre Castignola
Are we going in circles?
Design Academy Eindhoven x Kaldewei
The Design Academy Eindhoven Master’s department will host a series of free talks and discussions together with Kaldewei at Alcova Milano. These talks will explore the four key themes of material culture, cultural ecosystem, planetary and political bodies with the aim of bridging academia and industry, sparking collaboration and innovation. Kaldewei will share industry insights for pushing sustainability, circularity and climate-neutral material production.
When: 7-10 April 2025
Where: Villa Bagatti Valsecchi, Alcova Milano
Photo: Courtesy of Tarkett
The Beauty of Circularity
Tarkett
Tarkett is bringing its Beauty of Circularity exhibition to Salone del Milano, taking visitors on a journey through the brand’s closed-loop systems, exploring waste as a valuable and beautiful resource. Produced in collaboration with design futures consultancy FranklinTill, the exhibition invites visitors to embrace a new understanding of waste and circular systems.
When: 8-13 April 1 2025
Where: Room 4, Masterly The Dutch in Milano, Palazzo dei Giureconsulti, Piazza del Duomo, Milan
Photo: Josh Robenstone
Big Glow
Studio Truly Truly for Rakumba
Studio Truly Truly has developed a lighting collection for Rakumba using a blend of Australian wool and compostable fibres. Designed to be a high-performance lighting solution, Big Glow combines a soft glow of light through the lamp material with directional light from a gap in the base. With a production process, including sheep-rearing, fully contained in Victoria, Australia, the lamp represents a commitment to local industry and traceability.
When: 8-13 April 2025
Where: Rakumba Lighting, Salone del Mobile, Euroluce Hall 4, Stand D21
Photo: Courtesy of Mitre & Mondays
A Stone’s Throw
Mitre & Mondays
Compared to the billions of years that Earth has been around, any built environment lasts barely an instant. Mitre & Mondays challenge the normalized use of forever materials in temporary projects and the convenience of extractive, virgin resources over those that have been repurposed or recycled. This presentation presents stones with past lives to visitors, inviting them to engage in the practice of spolia or 'the reuse of stone architectural elements in new constructions'.
When: 8-12 April 2025, 10:30-20:00 and 13 April 2025, 10:30-18:00
Where: Room 1, BASE Milano, via Bergognone, 34, Milan
