Milan Design Week 2013: Werner Aisslinger @ Moroso

With DMY Berlin standing in front of the door like some excited child waiting to be taken to its chums birthday party, all eyes are slowly turning to to the German capital.

The first Berlin design events are already running and until June 9th the gallery “Haus am Waldsee” is presenting the exhibition “Home of the Future” by and featuring Werner Aisslinger.

We already posted a few photos in a (smow) facebook gallery.

Staircase Sofa in cooperation with Vitra and Honeycomb Landscape in cooperation with Kvadrat. As seen at Werner Aisslinger: Home of the Future, Haus am Waldsee.

Delightful as the exhibition unquestionably is, for us one of the more interesting aspects of the exhibition is/was the objects that weren’t on show. For all the Bikini Island concept Werner Aisslinger premiered on the Moroso stand at Milan Furniture Fair 2013.

Essentially a multi-level, multi-component living room/den system Bikini Island combines sofa units with a range of add-ons to create a modern modular system.

Yes it is outwardly more lifestyle than design.

No that shouldn’t appeal to us.

However, just as with the very closely related Level 34 office system for Vitra, Bikini Island is the result of not only careful observation of contemporary society but is also unmistakably the work of a designer looking for solutions for a reality still to come.

As such, for us, it really should have been included in Home of the Future.

Bikini Island by Werner Aisslinger for Moroso as seen at Milan Furniture Fair 2013

Not least because when viewed in the context of Home of the Future Bikini Island in many ways represents the combined realisation of many of the ideas explored in the exhibition.

And also highlights the current limitations of taking experimental design projects into commercial production.

For example:

Bikini Island features space for hanging flowers, but no option for integrating plants into the system.

The publicity material speaks of Bikini Island as being domestic furniture for a digital age, yet the system itself remains confusingly analogue with no options for accommodating modern technology.

Both situations that Werner Aisslinger tackles in projects on show in Haus am Waldsee.

But which, we assume, went a little too far for Moroso and their distribution network.

At the moment Bikin Island is still a concept and we’re not so green behind the ears as to believe that it will appear as an off-the-peg, ready-to-buy product any time soon.

Our hope is that in the coming months Werner Aisslinger can persuade Moroso not to be so conservative and to maybe consider adding one or the other more radical element to the system.

And certainly judging by a conversation we had with another designer in Milan about Moroso we are hopeful that the company are moving away from their more reserved, traditional positions.

Time will tell.

And for all wanting to learn more about how Werner Aisslinger thinks, and what he believes is possible, Home of the Future can be viewed at Haus am Waldsee, Argentinische Allee 30, 14163 Berlin until Sunday June 9th (That’s the last day of DMY Berlin for all planning visiting the festival :))

Bikini Island by Werner Aisslinger for Moroso