Alessi Research Lab

Alessi, founded in 1921 by Giovanni Alessi, has been able to develop a policy of design excellence which has made it one of the leading internationally renowned Italian Design Factories.  It has reconciled its typically industrial needs with its tendency to consider itself as a ‘research laboratory in the field of the applied arts’.

The ‘ALESSI RESEARCH LAB – A selection of recent projects from young designers’ exhibition at WantedDesign 2014 will highlight some of the research and workshops that the company has conducted and developed in collaboration with several designers on an international basis.
Each project on display will present a specific topic and the related research developed around it: from the innovation brought into the bar & wine typology by Giulio Iacchetti to the research in the working of metal wire by Pauline Deltour; from the digital design works of Tom Kovac, to the manufacturing of the stainless steel sheet through laser cut and folding shown through the designs by Abi Alice, to nature observation based design by Adam Cornish.

Other topics are: a research on LED lighting by Giovanni Alessi Anghini, Gabriele Chiave and Frédéric Gooris; geometry and color explored by matali crasset; the re-interpretation of the historical typology of the wire basket by Pierre Charpin; irony and methaphor shown through a series of small functional objects, the Objets-Bijoux.

On display also some of the most recent workshops: the Alessi Metal workshop with the Cranbrook Academy of Art, a workshop with the Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL) and #Concrete In Design, a collaboration with the Italian company Italcementi which shows the continuous interest of Alessi in experimenting also with new material like, in this case, concrete.

All projects are presented through a series of selected materials (prototypes, sketches, molds, videos and other) in order to give the public a behind the scenes look of Alessi and their research.