Design Week 2026Listone GiordanoBuild un-build
Design Week 2026Listone GiordanoBuild un-build
The line of thought we began with, in imagining the intervention within the Arena space for Design Week 2026, could only be shaped by what surrounds us—by the hyper-present we find ourselves immersed in. The accelerating pace at which history unfolds was already a known condition, but being thrust into a reality that continuously makes and unmakes itself before our eyes and behind our screens is something else entirely: a dimension that demands new forms of adaptation.
So why not reflect on the meaning and potential value of the ephemeral?On how design might become a tool to train us in temporariness?
In moments that feel dark and uncertain, salvation has always come from art and literature. In this case, inspiration is drawn from La vie mode d'emploi by Georges Perec—a self-dissolving novel which, through its extraordinarily detailed, almost watercolor-like descriptions of fragments of lives, ultimately returns the narrative to its original state of non-existence. It compels us to grasp the wonder of the work in itself, to embrace the astonishment of what unfolds, without expecting any final form of possession.
Build un-build in the Arena space seeks to embody precisely this: a tribute to becoming in the moment, to focusing on the gesture, to being fully present—because what follows will reveal itself as ungraspable, like one of the most intricate and beautiful mandalas.
Ephemeral typographyBalancing between construction and dissolution, the concept of a typography that emergesas ephemeral architecture: a mark that appears, overlaps, layers, and then vanishes.Inspired by Raffaele Salvoldi’s temporary structures, it embodies the fragility and transienceof a construction site, where every form is a transition and every gesture an attempt.
Ephemeral Architecture by Raffaele SalvoldiThe artist uses only natural or recycled materials in his works, such as wood and stone.The choice to create impermanent installations allows the materials to have a longer life,as they can be reused in different forms to give shape to new artworks.
Oak from Fontaines.Burgundy Forest
Raffaele Salvoldi is an artist who works with architectures composed through gravity, by stacking small wooden elements that are not fixed to one another. The way his structures evolve often depends on intuition and on his relationship with the surrounding environment. The result is always astonishing: they resemble miniature minarets or cathedrals, as if conjured by a magician’s hands.
This time, Raffaele will build within the Arena space, inviting designers, architects, and students involved in the project to take part in these upward evolutions. It will be made clear to everyone that, on a given day, these acrobatic constructions will disappear—they will be dismantled, returning us to the raw material itself, and to the awareness that what has been built will survive only as our own, singular, indissoluble memory.
A kit for imagination.Each participant, upon registration, will receive a kit consisting of 200 modular elements in Fontaines Oak.This noble and sustainable material is the expression of a conscious supply chain and a renewed bondbetween natural resources and design culture. With its tactile quality and inherent memory, the Oak becomesa design archetype and a tool for thought.
