Milan Design week Archives

AI

A Mossy Portal to the Future of AI

April 18, 2025 AI

At this year’s Milan Design Week, a curious sight drew hundreds of visitors—a moss-covered phone booth straight out of the 1990s. But step inside, and you’re speaking with the future.

Titled “2147” and created by QS Ventures, the installation invites guests to have unscripted, real-time conversations with Gaia, a multilingual AI voice agent. No screens, no buttons—just voice.

Over five days, more than 600 people chatted with Gaia in languages ranging from English to Japanese, exploring what human-AI dialogue might feel like when it’s deeply personal, responsive, and character-driven.

Unlike typical AI assistants, Gaia isn’t here to answer your calendar requests. She’s designed with tone, rhythm, and emotional pacing—blurring the lines between machine and storyteller. Wrapped in moss and greenery, the booth speaks to the deprecation of old technology, and offers a unique space for reflection, connection, and curiosity.

A relic of the past, reimagined for the future. Via DesignBoom:

Images © Copyright QS Ventures.

A moss-covered vintage phone booth transformed by QS Ventures into an interactive voice-based AI installation called 2147, shown at Milan Design Week 2025 — an object that fuses the most analog form of telecommunications with the most speculative form of artificial intelligence, inviting visitors to call the future and listen to what answers

Animals

Bringing the Outdoors Inside with These Incredible Furniture Pieces that Replicate Nature

December 14, 2020 Animals

There is furniture that is ‘inspired by nature’, and then there’s the new Design by Nature Collection, which looks like the real thing.

Created by Swedish studio Front and Italian brand Moroso, the collection was created using precise 3D scanning of natural objects. Pattered and textured to mimic mossy rocks, amorphous seaside rock formations, and the like.

The result is pretty remarkable, pieces of furniture that camouflage themselves in a natural setting, but bring a bit of natural realism into your home. The texture and color of the Kvadrat textiles mimic nature’s complexity and patterns, further creating the illusion, while also creating a soft and relaxing place to relax.

To be shown at Milan Design Week 2021, these showstoppers are extremely unique.

See more on Dezeen:

The new pieces of furniture are recreations of fragments of wilderness, using 3D-scanning, milling and weaving The pieces appear like moss-covered rocks and mounds, three-dimensional forms found in nature that suggest places for the human body to occupy.

-Front

Art

Bang & Olufsen BeoSound Shape

April 6, 2017 Art

Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen started their company 92 years ago, and it’s grown into one of the most respected (and expensive) names in sound. The company makes high-end audio devices and speakers, with incredible design that sets it apart from everyone else. The BeoSound Shape is definitely pushing that envelope, with it’s modular, wall-mounted speakers that group together to form a literal wall of sound. The wireless speakers come in a huge array of colors, and look good even with the sound turned off. Design Milk has a deeper look at these sweet little hexagons.

Architecture

3D Printed Shoes to Challenge Your Assumptions

April 15, 2015 Architecture

Let’s just say that you probably won’t find your grandmother wearing these kicks anytime soon.

3D sinter-printed using some of the latest technology and materials, the United Nude + 3D Systems exhibition is called simply “Re-inventing Shoes” and features designs from some of the most cutting edge people working today. These printable footwear are shown at Milan Design Week 2015. Designers include Ben van Berkel, Ross Lovegrove, Zaha Hadid, Michael Young and Fernando Romero. Via DesignBoom: