Design Studio Formafantasma Rethinks Waste And How We View Luxury Design

Formafantasma wants to question the concept of luxury with Earth Laboratory. Staged within the historic walls of Teatro Gerolamo during the Fuorisalone as part of this year's Milan Design Week, the dynamic installation challenges the viewer to look beyond mere surface beauty in design, turning the gaze towards ethical and ecological modes of process and production.

Collaborating with Cosentino, manufacturer of sustainable surfaces for design and architecture projects, Formafantasma has turned waste into beauty. The design studio has set out to intelligently rethink what we consider junk as reused and reimagined within the design and production process.

For example, waste collected from Cosentino's manufacturing processes is used in the production of surfaces that appear in Earth Laboratory, while the used cooking oil from the company's kitchen helps in the manufacture of the resin, and the white fragments of the surfaces—the aesthetic parts—are composed of recycled glass and PET, as in recycled plastics. Even the chosen color palette of moderate grays and dark greens requires less resin than if the team had opted for lighter, brighter tones.

This isn't a vanity project either. The facility in Milan introduces a sub-brand and research platform within Cosentino dedicated to investigating how the company could make its processes more sustainable in general.

Since founding their practice in 2009, and through their studies in Milan and Rotterdam, Italian designers Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin have examined ways in which design can have a positive impact on the world. With projects ranging from furniture and lighting design, to installations and research-based initiatives, and collaborating with various industries and global institutions, Formafantasma's work continuously pushes the boundaries of design and drives a critical thinking about the role that design and objects play in our societies.

I caught up with Trimarchi and Farresin ahead of their show in Milan to understand more about the Cosentino project, as well as get a sense of their approach to design now and in the future.

Earthic Lab offers a new perspective on the world of surfaces. Can you talk about the decisions you've made using reclaimed and waste materials in processing and production?

We started by looking back at Cosentino's waste streams. A component that is now fundamental to the development of surfaces is the use of remnants from the company's productive processes. We have also introduced a resin that, while still synthetic for the most part, uses oil recovered from cooking oil in part. It has an organic component. Other components include recycled glass and PET, which is also used for the small bits of white visible in the surface design aesthetic.

Can you talk about the design process?

The design process here is to design from the inside out. We did not start from aesthetics but from the idea of ​​improving the sustainable components within the surface. Based on this, the use of recycled materials, we have decreased the amount of materials that needed to be excavated or extracted from the subsoil for the production of this surface. This is the general concept.

Your more subdued color choice also seems to have had a sustainable angle…

We realized, talking to the engineers at Cosentino, that the lighter and brighter the color, the more resin was needed. For this reason, we have decided to go in the direction of darker tones, which we also believe fits the context where these materials would be used, especially on kitchen counters. But it was pertinent to go in this direction from a sustainable perspective.

What were your biggest challenges?

Find materials that are as close as possible to the production facility. From the beginning, since we wanted to make the material more sustainable, it didn't make sense to source materials from the other side of the world, even if they were recycled, given the increased levels of CO2 emissions from transportation.

That's why we started from the factory, to see what is possible to recycle from within the factory itself. Then we continued with recycled glass from the area and PET. Of course, there have been materials and components used in the slabs that come from other areas, for example Turkey, but we have tried to work as much as possible from where Cosentino is based, and expand only where necessary .

Is this how you envision the future of luxury surface design?

Yes, we see it as the future of surface design. It's not about luxury; it's about the world we live in. We can no longer just look at aesthetics but we have to understand the importance of how things are made. Our collaboration with Cosentino is precisely that: an attempt to design a product from the inside out where aesthetic choices also correspond to ethical and sustainable choices. Decision making from this perspective is what is relevant to design in general.

If we really have to talk about luxury, we do not believe that luxury can only be about the qualities based on the execution of something, but must correspond to the sustainable ways of production.

And do you see both the industry and the consumer more open to adopting new concepts?

Whom you call a consumer, we prefer to call a user or citizens, as we believe that these objects should not be consumed but used. We believe that users are always willing to accept something that makes sense and still fulfills the functions that are important. We want to emphasize that we know that this is not the final solution, but that we are on a path towards improvement.

Terrestrial is a laboratory within Cosentino that aims to continue this research towards improving the quality of materials. We believe that users are ready to apply this type of product in their homes, because it fulfills its purpose and the performance qualities are there, but it also has an added value, which is the attempt to make the surface more sustainable. So why shouldn't people accept this? In addition, we are aware that the more improvements we make to help the environment, the better our well-being will be.

You talk about the show's mission to address and challenge the climate crisis. What do you hope the audience will take away from Milan?

Understanding the reality of the product, its components and design is not only a matter of aesthetics but also of how things are produced. Very often we talk about quality in production, which is about the performance of the product, and we talk about aesthetics, but we rarely talk about the decision-making behind how they are made. This is extremely important to be able to make an informed decision, and this installation will help visitors see it.

Cosentino Earthic Lab x Formafantasma at Fuorisalone took place April 15-21, 2024 at Teatro Gerolamo in Milan, Italy.

Read my Fuorisalone highlights at Milan Design Week 2024 here.