UNStudio Futures & USM present 'Making Places' in Milan UNStudio Futures & USM present 'Making Places' in Milan
News - 10 April 2019

UNStudio Futures & USM present 'Making Places' in Milan

At this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan, UNStudio Futures have teamed up once again with Swiss furniture brand USM to design their 'Making Places' stand: a playful installation that investigates 'a third space' between home and work.

Since 2017, USM and UNStudio Futures have been exploring the rapidly changing world of work. Last year USM's ‘HomeWork’ stand at the Salone del Mobile, designed by UNStudio, recieved, among others, the Frame Award for Trade-fair Stand of the Year. Since then, in Germany we worked with USM on The Workhouse installation with PlayLabs scenario building workshops in Wehrmuele, and in Switzerland, created the RollPlay installation at Designers' Saturday in Lagenthal.

This year, at 'Making Places' we explore the third space that provides the conditions for humans to thrive between Home and Work. But what exactly are these conditions? We’ve identified four: growing, learning, reflecting and meeting. And with Making Places we demonstrate how the USM Haller system can be used to make these, simply by adding a few extra ingredients...

usm.com/homework

Where is the boundary between home and work today? Over the past year of research, we’ve identified four conditions which will become increasingly important in work in the future: Growing (Healthy environments), Meeting (Human-to-human interaction), Reflecting (Mindfulness & wellbeing) and Learning (Re-skilling to keep pace with machines). For Making Places, we have interpreted these topics into the design of four large Haller pieces, presented at Milan Design Week.

Making Places is a collective process, so visitors are invited to cover the stage with custom-made stickers, designed by UNStudio together with PINC graphic design, which show a playful perspective on the system’s classical geometry. The stickers reference a progressive, youthful street culture and alternative visual language for USM.