29 Milano —  my project in the world of design

There comes a moment when you feel a bit trapped in the role you’ve built for yourself — when you’d almost rather do something else entirely. It happens. And when it does, you have two choices: wait for it to pass, or do something different.

I chose the second. The result is called 29 Milano.

What follows is a presentation I gave in June 2024 to a room full of fellow architects at the Milan Order of Architects:

Today I want to tell you about a project that was a break with the past — a project born to shake things up, to put myself back in the game, and to shift how people perceive me and my personal brand.

How the idea came about

It all started at the Fuorisalone in 2022. I was watching the presentation of a new technology for prototyping and producing upholstered furniture — developed by the Tuscan company Superevo — and I started daydreaming. What if I used this technology to make small architectures? Design objects seen through the eyes of an architect?

A few months later I had a conference coming up at CityLife, and that’s where the concrete idea came to me: to design the back of an armchair as if it were a building. A skyscraper. The armchair I designed I called the Milano Armchair, in homage to the Isozaki Tower at CityLife that inspired it.

In October 2023 I started the first prototype. In April 2024 I presented it at the Design Week, at the Brera Design District, in the cloisters of the church of San Marco.

Why I did it

I felt the need to make something fast. Something whose design and construction wouldn’t take years — I’ve worked on projects that lasted ten years, and in ten years anything can happen.

Above all, I needed to build something that pleased me, for me. Not a building for someone else, with all the compromises that entails. A bit like when you were young and you designed and dreamed without having to answer to anyone.

So I decided to self-produce a small collection and invented a new brand: 29 Milano. You can see the result at 29milano.com.

Up to this point, more or less, things were going well. What follows is what happened after June 2024.

The prototype, the corrections, the second round

The armchair turned out to be very comfortable — beyond all expectations, I have to say. But it had a problem: it didn’t work well for people taller than 1.80m or shorter than 1.60m. If you were too short, your feet didn’t reach the floor when seated.

The seat depth was modified and the front legs were redesigned, reprinted in 3D and recast in bronze, to also eliminate a certain lateral instability in the first prototype. By the end of 2024, Superevo had produced the second prototype. Which, I have to say, still makes me very happy today.

The project within the project

During development I realised I was building something much bigger than an armchair. Design, prototyping, production, distribution, brand identity, company registration, trademark and model protection in Italy and Europe, website, presence on Archiproducts, marketing plan, business model.

Everything you need to take a product from zero to market — I did it, or at least I tried.

There was also an additional project within the project: the armchair prototype contains an NFC chip scannable via Bluetooth that links to a unique product certificate, registered on blockchain through an NFT. Essentially an early version of the digital product passport that the EU wants to implement by 2030. But I’ll tell you more about blockchain and NFTs in another post.

How it ended — honestly

Projects in life almost never follow a straight line, and they rarely end up where you aimed them.

The physical project — the armchair — got where I wanted it to go. The broader 29 Milano project — the brand, the marketing, the commercialisation — is currently on hold. Starting a new commercial venture requires more resources than I can commit right now. And, I’ll admit it, it was taking up so much time that I was neglecting my architecture studio, UPA Italia.

I worked with an assistant for the graphic and web side, someone for texts and communications, three young designer-modellers for the prototypes — beyond the armchair I made a sideboard, some leather director-style chairs, and many other products that stayed on paper. And many friends who helped and supported me along the way.

What was missing was a bit of luck — which matters in everything — and also the money to keep going.

Today it remains a fantastic experience, a few meaningful recognitions including the Design Masterprize, and the hope that sooner or later I’ll figure out a way to make this project flourish. As always, I’m counting on a little help from Lady Luck.

Something I understood — though I’d already sensed it

I love designing and inventing things of any kind: a hospital, a house, an armchair, a logo, a marketing plan, a Real Estate ecosystem based on blockchain technology — but I’ll tell you about that one later.

The container changes. The way of thinking stays the same.

29 Milano confirmed it for me. And that, in the end, is already worth something.