Interni Design Energies

Talented architects and designers have brought some remarkable installations to the Interni Design Energies exhibition – one of the main features of Milan Design Week 2009. Using personal projects – eco-construction, ecodesign, a mixture of natural materials and high-technology products – they all relate to the challenge of environmental responsibility. This is a small selection of images of projects arising from a week in the central hall at the University of Milan.

1. Untitled
Rudy Ricciotti with Romain Ricciotti and Guillaume Lamoureux
Designed and developed for a villa in France, these DuctalŽ roofing elements (ultra-high performance Lafarge concrete) allow an overhang of 7.8m, 3cm thick at the balcony edge. An architectural gesture and a structural challenge. A civil engineer used to working on bridges and pathways, Romain Ricciotti planed the forms and dimensions with his meticulous work. Each 9.25m long, 2.35 wide panel is made up of a plate of constant thickness bordered by two gradual inertia side girders, higher than the supports and thinning down to join the thickness of the end of the plate. The minimalist aesthetics make for reduced energy and materials consumption – setting it apart from standard new architecture.

2. South face
Massimo Iosa Ghini with architect Maurizio Corrado and Riccardo Rigolli
A bit of pure architecture – a wall made of DuctalŽ concrete sections extended by a wooden ground piece used as a support for spectacular vegetation. The green façade is a real vertical garden, absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere.

3. Boo-tech – BambooEcoDome
Mauricio Cardenas with Giammichele Melis and Beppino Ortile
The main material used here – bamboo – is used with contemporary technology and idiom. Creating a geodesic dome with complex geometry, this fast-growing material shows off its qualities of lightness and flexibility, combining with standard components of steel and glass, creating façades and roofing.

4. Hot Spot
Marc Sadler
Functioning as a closed circuit, the aim of this installation is to show that it is possible to use water and energy to their best advantage. Water, sent from a circular recuperation tray in a circuit of fifteen solar collectors grouped together in the shape of a sail, is heated and routed into the tank. After being filtered, it is pumped to the top, where it comes down in a waterfall.

5. Limitless colour tower
Marco Piva
Coming from research into light, the air, space and wellbeing, the architecture of Piva comes through in two stages. The exterior protective skin reacts to the environment and is made up of 160 polished steel plates. The sensitive, tactile and coloured interior skin is characterised by polycarbonate mirrors and iridescent panels illuminated with LED systems and Murano glass.

6. T-Energy
Luca Trazzi
This project aims to demonstrate how solar panels and structural and decorative elements can combine to become essential elements within a building.
The energy generated during the daytime is used at night to light up the luminous panels, creating shade ad light patterns.