Pure volumes, minimal or non-existent decoration, primacy of functionality, harnessing new materials: from the Casa del Fascio in Como to the railway station in Florence, the story of an experimental period that, after almost a century and several attempts at damnatio memoriae, remains a tangible presence in Italy.
Piero Lissoni with Storage for Porro

Storage is a constantly evolving, architecturally-inspired modular system designed with rationality and functionality in mind, boasting seductive transparency.
Storage is a gentleman’s wardrobe.
Storage came into being years ago, in 2000, and it just keeps evolving. It’s a structure within a structure, but it’s extremely light because it breathes transparency, rather like a window inside a house. We worked to an architectural rather than a product scale, we wondered whether it would be possible to put container windows inside homes. That’s how Storage came into being.
Then, every detail is a project in itself, from the scale and the modules down to the choice of woods and colours. This year, for example, we added lighting, but it’s a trick, an invisible light that conceals the technology but helps you figure out what’s inside in a delicate and sensual manner.
The materials and the woods have a precise role and define the other elements of the project too. Everything relates to everything else, and every element has its own importance so that it becomes an experience in the round, capable of bestowing a precise identity on what will become the space. As I said earlier, even the materials are a project within a project.
Storage is one of those evolving products that I love because it keeps making me raise the bar and pushes me a little bit further.
Lorenzo Porro and I will undoubtedly invent something else … maybe in 10 years’ time it will be a spacecraft.

A play space is a serious matter
Not just fun places, but true places of social focus, where individuals gather, create bonds and build trust

The second edition of the Roundtables on Milan Design (Eco) System
Discussions ranged from the role of cultural policies and training, the appearance of new publics and emerging practices, all the way to innovative networks between territories and design. This is an account of the day’s work on Thursday 25 September, as part of the research project promoted by the Salone del Mobile and the Politecnico di Milano