Milan: Pircher and Paola Lenti

There was another prefab installation in the Zona Tortona that was far more interesting than the Loft Cube. It was a prefabricated system by Bestetti Associati for Pircher that is entirely made of glass, wood and iron.


Large rectangular prefabricated rooms can be coordinated to create a variety of home designs. They also claim to be environmentally sustainable and energy efficient.

The interiors inside the Pircher installation were decorated with furniture and rugs by Paola Lenti. Their stunning collections are extremely high quality and come in an array of saturated hues.

I am completely besotted with the whole rug collection and particularly those designed by Patricia Urquiola.

Milan: Loft Cube

The area outside the Marcel Wanders Studio exhibit was dominated by a full sized Loft Cube. After seeing it in so many magazines over the last year, I was dying to get inside and quickly joined the queue.


Initially in awe of the layout and clever separation of living areas, my disappointment mounted as the practical woman in me kept searching for storage - any storage, but to no avail. I also do not feel that additional storage space would have affected the design concept. For example, the bathroom and kitchen sinks were wall mounted with no cupboards below. Hmm... where to hide those cleaning products? Perhaps the people who come to clean the cube bring them with them...

The choice of white Corian for the kitchen counters, cupboards and sink looked absolutely stunning, but would drive the average person mad trying to keep clean, as every little fingerprint would stand out like a scar on your lovely new kitchen. I was thinking that perhaps a better choice would be a white Corian counter (which is manageable) and cupboards in a wood veneer to match the window frames.

I often think that what differentiates industrial design from fine art is the fact that great design must be beautiful and practical; definitely a hard balance to strike. In fact, what initially drew me to design was that amazing combination of beauty, genius, function and a grounding in the every day that the very best work achieves.