Milan, A’ Design Award Bronze, 2025
Winner
FS418 was awarded the A’ Design Award in Milan in 2025. The project was developed as a commissioned work for a private client and selected within an international competition framework that brings together contributions from architecture, design, and art worldwide.
At the core of the design was not the creation of a decorative object, but rather the question of reduction, materiality, and durability. The desk is conceived as a monolithic body made of natural stone. Form, construction, and function follow a deliberately restrained architectural attitude: clear geometry, reduced joints, and a focus on material, proportion, and use.
Hidden storage, integrated charging points, and a retractable writing surface are fully embedded within the body. Technical elements do not appear as visible components but instead subordinate themselves to spatial calm and material expression.
Particular importance was given to the selection of the marble itself. Over an extended period, a stone block was sought in Carrara whose natural structure conveys a specific spatial memory. The veining of the marble recalls light and depth within a forest landscape — the experience of looking through layers of trees and foliage. The title “Forest Walk” therefore describes less a formal shape and more an attempt to translate perception and atmosphere into material.
The project is exemplary of an attitude that does not understand design as a question of style, but as a deliberate condensation of perception, material, and meaning. Architecture, interior design, and functional art are not treated as separate disciplines, but as different scales of the same design responsibility.
The author thanks the client for their trust and willingness to realize a consistently reduced and material-driven work, as well as all craftsmen involved in the execution in Italy.
