Marazzi for Soft Home

During Milan Design Week, Marazzi partnered Elle Decor in the “Soft Home” project, which explored the new frontiers in home design through a digital interactive experience in the splendid setting of Palazzo Bovara.

The challenge was to integrate hi-end technologies in interior design projects "using a complex installation to redefine the rooms' authenticity and restore them to a domestic scale", as Marcante and Testa of UdA Architetti, who designed the project, told us.

Soft Home originated from a meditation on the integration of smart technologies into everyday home life, given their undoubted worth in simplifying our lives, helping to meet needs both large and small, keeping us in contact with people who are far away and enabling us to share experiences. “So the interfaces we designed were able to communicate with their users in an empathic, personal and even ironic way, learning from their behaviours," explained H-ART, in charge of the interaction and visual design aspect.

The project successfully expressed a new idea of the home, modern and responsive to people's needs, designed with innovative furnishings and materials in constant dialogue with the new technologies applied.

The Marazzi Triennale 4 curve tile, designed by Ponti and Rosselli, in the Sage, Ginger and Indaco colours, covered the walls of the “Bagno Lezioso” (“Dainty Bathroom”), a space for personal care and beauty where the mirror acted as a personal coach. When users approached the sensitive interface in the surface of the mirror, it displayed animations with suggestions on make-up and what to wear, motivational messages, good news from the world and green information about good practice in water recycling.

In the ‘Galleria Squillante’ (“Ringing Gallery"), a sensory space where visitors were invited to explore surfaces with their senses of touch and hearing, the materials chosen were the 3D Wave version of Materika, a new slimline wall covering which received the 2015 ADI Ceramics Design Award, and SistemC mosaic in a bright orange colour. The tiles were transformed into real musical instruments, to be played like percussion, thanks to a device applied to their surfaces which combined a vibration sensor with musical software. Visitors were able to play solo or in groups, even creating collective performances. This tactile exploration associated with sound also had a metaphorical message, reminding us all that every material has a clearly defined identity, fundamental in the development of every design project.