Milan Design Week’s ‘round-the-clock frenzy of showroom tours, brisk run-throughs of branded pop-ups, and late-night networking outside Bar Basso doesn’t leave much time for play—or room to clear the mind before cruising to Lake Como for a well-earned weekend of post-Salone decompression. But one installation is breaking that mold.

Situated in the lavish Palazzo Clerici a brief jaunt from the Duomo and Teatro alla Scala is a giant net installation devised by Numen/For Use, the Vienna-, Zagreb-, and Berlin-based artist collective founded by Christopher Katzler, Nikola Radeljković, and Sven Jonke. Made of lightweight nets whose black-and-white colors dynamically crisscross as they stretch several stories high, the sculpture, Lines of Flight, aims to evoke a cloud of excited starlings taking flight. Don’t be shy—visitors are welcome to climb in, explore the structure, and hopefully forget about their next appointment.

Lines of Flight is the latest edition of Porsche’s ongoing The Art of Dreams series, which has enlisted talents like Cyril Lancelin and Ruby Barber to design interactive installations that provide pleasant diversions during major cultural events. This year, the German automaker asked Numen/For Use to riff on its Pepita pattern, a classic houndstooth textile made of small squares connected by diagonal stripes that Porsche introduced in the 1960s and has become one of the automotive world’s most rarefied fabrics. (Vitra is releasing three limited-edition chairs upholstered in Pepita this week to celebrate.) Its repetitive geometric interplay resembles crisscrossing nets, and the trio of industrial designers by training have been making inhabitable nets, cocoons, and ropes for more than a decade, so the brief was a no-brainer.

“Our idea of a dream is an inhabitable utopia,” the collective says. “For us, dreaming is a process of self-discovery in which we confront the new and the unknown.” Visitors can take them up on that firsthand—choreographer siblings Imre and Marne van Opstal are staging a dance performance within Lines of Flight today, in which a group of dancers gracefully ascend the structure, get into position, and synchronize their movements to a reverberating musical number. Surface sat down with the members of Numen/For Use to talk about parasitic art, negotiating stability, and the potential of adult playgrounds.

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For St. Ali & the Queen, a local coffee shop by day and bar by night, Fiona Lynch’s Melbourne studio seems to have found inspiration in the high drama of Brutalist churches. Cement-lined clerestory windows grant passersby a peek in at the interiors, whose show-stopping effect is owed to the triple threat of clean lines, blocky forms, and slabs of travertine and stone. A deli, takeout window, cocktail program overseen by industry expert Orlando Marzo, and freshly roasted coffee offer Melburnians several reasons to stop in—day or night.

During last year’s Milan Design Week, we concluded that Artemest may have made the showhouse feel cool again. The go-to digital marketplace for Italian craftsmanship presented the first edition of L’Appartamento, in which six pre-eminent interior designers reimagined a stately residence nestled within the city’s tony 5Vie district, each utilizing furnishings and art selected from Artemest’s extensive network of brands and makers. With surprises and delights at every corner, it made for a refreshing palette cleanser during an otherwise frenetic week of back-to-back appointments. The second edition is taking that winning formula but whisking in a dose of romantic melodrama.

It’s all in the location: Residenza Vignale, an ornate 1907 dwelling that was once home to an Austrian prince whose yearnings for a young Milanese woman drew him to move there. That amorous allure sparked imaginative ideas from the six design firms—Elicyon, Gachot Studios, Tamara Feldman Design, Rottet Studio, VSHD Design, and Studio Meshary AlNassar—selected for this year’s edition. Each transformed one room into a covetable sanctuary.

Long inspired by the outdoors owing to his family’s home near Lake Garda, the 25-year-old rising talent Abreham Brioschi translates everyday shapes and abstract concepts from Ethiopian culture into compelling objects for the home, ranging from one-of-a-kind timber furniture to vibrant hand-tufted rugs. At this year’s Milan Design Week, he debuts three stellar rugs for Nodus that embody his strong bond with his origins: one translates the Danakil Depression’s arid volcanic conditions into a warm-toned statement piece while two gracefully mimic the scars that form on the skin from the tribal scarification process.

Take it from these editors: it’s shockingly difficult to find seating suited to reading, dining, and working, that doesn’t look fussily ergonomic yet responds to the body’s pattern of movement. Even a seemingly sedentary body shifts, flexes, and stretches innumerable times over every chapter read or round of drinks and bites shared among friends. That’s where Vitra’s Mikado chair comes in. The new-to-market perch from London product design studio Barber & Osgerby “evokes the image of cushions floating on elegant legs,” the duo says. It’s surprisingly customizable and features a stealthy reclining backrest for an optimal balance between comfort and aesthetics.

Last week, the International Center of Photography hosted its landmark commemoration of enduring excellence in the field of photography. Guests included leaders from the city’s creative, philanthropic, and civic circles, who gathered to fête the center’s 50th anniversary and the five recipients of its 2024 Infinity Awards. After the ceremony, guests and artists gathered for an afterparty nightcap under the night sky at the Shed’s Tisch Skylights.

When was it? April 10

Where was it? The Shed, New York

Who was there? Hugh Jackman, Linda Evangelista, Wendy Red Star, Shirin Neshat, Isolde Brielmaier, David Maupin, Renell Medrano, Lynsey Addario, Caryl S. Englander, and more.

Cass Calder Smith Architecture + Interiors is an interdisciplinary, bi-coastal practice with offices in San Francisco and New York City. Celebrating 30 years in business, the firm practices boldness balanced with simplicity, innovation balanced with functionality, and power balanced with precision. The studio’s award-winning modern designs have an attention to detail, materiality, and authenticity that exhibit an artfulness uniquely tailored to the client.

Surface Says: Cass Calder Smith may call New York and San Francisco its home bases, but the reach of this interdisciplinary firm extends far beyond thanks to the expertise of its principals and more than three decades in the business.

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