“Young bloods” of DAE take on Milan design week

In April 2023, DAE’s in-house editorial team and the student-led Elevator Radio travelled to Milan design week to stage “X” – an experimental radio and research project, focused around a temporary studio at SaloneSatellite.

The Elevator Radio team and DAE editorial team working on “X” at SaloneSatellite. Photo by Ilco Kemmere Fotografie

Instead of displaying projects, the project aimed to explore some of the fundamental questions surrounding the existence and function of a design fair in a world facing huge challenges like the climate crisis and the rising cost of living. Each day of broadcasting was framed by a series of themes, such as Crisis x Critique, Words x Objects and Performance x Production.

The project drew in participants from across the spectrum of the design industry, including critics and curators, students from other design schools and DAE alumni who were exhibiting across Milan – and even Queen Maxima from the Netherlands, who was interviewed live on air by current DAE students.

“It is a simple but beautiful idea, with the station offering valuable critique and analysis of design from the Rho fairgrounds – a welcome burst of incisive reflection emanating from within the core of the industry’s commercial operation,” wrote design journal Disegno whose editor-in-chief Oli Stratford participated in a roundtable discussion as part of the project.

The main base for the radio team was a stand at SaloneSatellite, the young designers’ exhibition that takes place at the Salone del Mobile – the world’s most important furniture fair. The stand was transformed into a welcoming studio space, with reused and reclaimed materials and furniture that is part of the day-to-day life of the school.

Pink curtains, made from fabric previously used in an installation by Eindhoven-based design studio Daphna Laurens lined the walls. Other elements were created from materials donated by DAE’s material bank B-Zar which sponsored the installation, and the Elevator Radio team also created a record stand and stool on-site, using set-up waste reclaimed from installations by bigger exhibitors at Salone del Mobile.

Zoe Bruhat and Guanyan Wu of Elevator Radio interview Queen Máxima live on-air for “X”. Photo by about.today

The team also visited key venues around Milan with a roving “radio box”, interviewing visitors and exhibitions at Alcova and Base among others.

The project was highlighted by various media and commentators as a standout at the Salone, including Dezeen editor-in-chief Max Fraser – another participant in the project – and the Eindhoven Dagblad’s Anne van Wolfswinkel, who included DAE among the notable “young bloods” of the design week: “the students of the Design Academy like to throw the bat at the Milanese chicken coop with 'a healthy dose of chaos’,” she wrote.

Guanyan Wu created the identity for “X”, which included an open logo that invited visitors and students at DAE to add their own take by drawing or marking the “x” shape with their own design. Photo by Ilco Kemmere Fotografie

DAE was widely represented elsewhere at design week, with recent alumni showing work in exhibitions across the city.

Formafantasma the studio led by DAE alumni and heads of the school’s Geo–Design MA Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi, created an arena installation at Salone del Mobile and curated a programme of talks with Prada around materials as well as showing recent design projects.

Both the BASE venue and Isola District hosted multiple exhibitions and installations by recent graduates, and more could be found as part of exhibitions at the Nilufar Depot Rossana Orlandi and in Italy: A New Collective Landscape at the ADI Design Museum, among other places.