HEALTHY brilliantly redesigns sustainable homes

HEALTHY brilliantly redesigns sustainable homes
HEALTHY brilliantly redesigns sustainable homes

 

HEALTHY designed by Massimiliano Mandarini, an expert in Sustainability and Environmental Design, was born as a response to the combined issues of climate change and the Pandemic, connected to remote working, new housing, and leisure.

It is a sustainable, circular, plastic-free, and off-grid Oasis of Human Design. Immersive and empathic micro-environments, where you can take time and care for yourself, for healthy lifestyles and living.

HEALTHY brilliantly redesigns sustainable homes HEALTHY brilliantly redesigns sustainable homes HEALTHY brilliantly redesigns sustainable homes HEALTHY brilliantly redesigns sustainable homes HEALTHY brilliantly redesigns sustainable homes HEALTHY brilliantly redesigns sustainable homes

When and where

After a one-year standby, Design was back in Milan, Italy in September 2021. The number of events and exhibitions was somewhat less than usual, to avoid excessive clusters in the city, but yet the standards were kept higher than ever.

New York Style Guide was at both Fuorisalone and Supersalone, and we are ready to share some groundbreaking news for our readers. Our “best of” starts from the revolutionary environmental design by Massimiliano Mandarini.

Here you can find our table of content. Use it to select the part you want to read first, or just scroll, read, and enjoy.

Table of Content:

HEALTHY: The Project

The project is born from a year of research on new post-pandemic Human Design models, and new materials and technologies for environmentally friendly spaces.

It was presented at Superstudio Più during Milan Design Week 2021, and it is to be considered a platform for sharing and disseminating the culture of sustainability, and the 2030 Agenda. It focuses on the importance of conserving biodiversity and the planet, in harmony with human activities.

 

Healthy at Superstudio Milano
HEALTHY at Superstudio Milano

Project on a notebook

 

HEALTHY is a project that addresses the themes of urban regeneration, a post-pandemic rethinking of places in the city and countryside, it answers questions for a living, for eco-districts, for the redevelopment of offices and tourist sites, it is designed in BIM and built-in manufacturing 4.0.

Keywords to know about this project

In order to understand the groundbreaking innovation that comes with this project, there are some words that we must understand.

Biophilic

The installation by Massimiliano Mandarini is an example of biophilic design. But what is biophilic design?

Biophilic design is a concept used within the building industry. It aims to increase occupant connectivity to the natural environment. This connectivity happens through the use of direct and/or indirect nature, space, and place conditions.

It is argued that this concept has health, environmental, and economic benefits for building occupants and urban environments, with few drawbacks. Although the term biophilic was coined in recent history, indicators of biophilic design appeared in architecture from as far back as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. [source: wikipedia]

Modular

If you are a returning reader, you might remember we wrote about modular design when we met industrial designer Tommaso Gecchelin and interviewed him about his project Next. If you did not read that article, here is the link: MEET NEXT FUTURE TRANSPORTATION.

In any case, to explain modular design in simple terms, let’s say it is a specific approach for product designing.

To produce a complete product, the designer integrates and/or combines smaller parts, that originally are independent of each other.

With this approach, a complex product (in this case, houses) can be broken down. Once divided into smaller and simpler components, these components can be designed each on their own as well as being independently manufactured, to be finally integrated into the ultimate product, e.g., as in this case, houses. All parts of a house is broken down, designed individually, independently, and then assembled to create the final piece.

Modularity makes designing:

  • easily customizable, including making any upgrade easier;
  • faster to assemble, and hence quicker to market;
  • by definition reusable and hence sustainable;

HEALTHY brilliantly redesigns sustainable homes

The installation

The artistic installation offers circular microarchitectures and biophilic spaces, with zero environmental impact, through the use of modular and autonomous solutions from an energy point of view (see the paragraph above to familiarize with the vocabulary), innovative materials, and technologies, that simultaneously increase the quality of life and creative productivity.

It is a place where you can live and work in a hybrid way, in any environmental and climatic condition, where nature, technology, and human activities, generate creative and sustainable places, on a human and planetary scale, as a new paradigm of nomadic and flexible life/work, for Eco-Resilient Communities.

Consider this installation an Oasis of nature and technology that also looks to the past, to the extraordinary period of the nineteenth century, and to the avant-garde through design and material contaminations between tradition and innovation in safety, with the most innovative sustainable and digital technologies, thanks to the presence of the best industrial and sustainable Italian and international products, including:

that present new and innovative solutions together with the architect Massimiliano Mandarini.

Let’s focus on RBM MORE. What is it?

RBM MORE

RBM MORE was born from research and development processes, a new operating unit of R.B.M. S.p.A., a leading Brescia company in the hydrothermal sector with four production plants in Italy, five branches in Europe and the United States. [Brescia is a historical and traditionally industrial town located East of Milano, in Lombardy, Northern Italy – ed]

RBM MORE offers the best solutions for climatic comfort, made up of innovative and inimitable systems: it offers the first integrated system for the management and control of the climate in domestic and working environments and in collective spaces such as hotels, hospitals, residences for the elderly. It consists of a set of systems for the design, installation and management of simple, rational, energy-efficient climate systems, compatible with generation systems from renewable sources.

It is the key to the design and construction of modern, environmentally friendly, energy-efficient architectural spaces, that ensure maximum comfort for those who live or occupy them, with minimum maintenance requirements and maximum management safety.

Massimiliano Mandarini presented the BLT Series by RBM MORE in a new biophilic design line through a first Nature concept with customization of textures and graphics, inspired by nature and Planet Earth.

The RBM MORE systems are born from the observation and imitation of nature to improve the quality of the spaces and the well-being of those who live there, offering technologies that work with radiation, or the natural way in which heat is spread. BLT Series, installed in the HEALTHY project, is a perimeter radiant heating and cooling system that guarantees constant temperature and humidity without creating noise and annoying forced air currents, such as normal air conditioners do: it comes with a skirting board in green version with custom-made aluminum cladding in 4 finishes.

HEALTHY brilliantly redesigns sustainable homes HEALTHY brilliantly redesigns sustainable homes

To be applied along the perimeters of the rooms, it can be mounted on a baseboard or in a false ceiling and does not require the installation of a dehumidifier.

Massimiliano Mandarini: the interview

Let’s answer a single question first: who is Massimiliano Mandarini?

Massimiliano Mandarini in his HEALTHY home
Massimiliano Mandarini

Massimiliano is an Italian architect, biophilic designer and sustainable advisor, winner of the World Green Design Awards (2015) and of the Green Building & Leadership Italia Awards (2017). He is a very energetic and positive person with hundreds of anecdotes from his worldwide experience. In just a few minutes Massimiliano would wow you with incredible movie-like stories from his relations in China, the United States and many more countries where he met the most varied professionals, politicians, and creatives.

New York Style Guide met him and asked a few questions about his visions and projects. Here is his answer.

Good afternoon Massimiliano and thank you for meeting us. My first question about Healthy is: looking at the starting point of this project, what can you tell about your personal approach?

Thank you Flora, nice to meet you, I am happy to share my project with your readers. Yours is quite a question! Where do I begin? I’d say, the starting point is that I wanted to connect two things that I consider must be joined in architecture: sustainability and technology. My project wants to harmonize the interaction with the natural environment. Every simple aspect of the environments that we have presented at Superstudio in Milan is user-friendly. The use of technology to elevate the state of comfort is important, as much as experiencing it not as opposed to nature. It helps us change our lifestyles without feeling the change as dramatic.

What do you mean by “elevating the state of comfort”?

Let me give you a very simple example: the windows and doors. As you see them displayed, they are completely see-through and transparent, but they do adapt to the changing moods of the day as the sun moves around, as they adapt to the intensity of the sun according to seasons, and one more thing: you can reduce the transparency for major comfort.

Doors' original transparency
Doors’ original transparency

 

Doors changing color
The same door seen from the outside and from the inside in two different moments of shading, from lighter to dark. These two pictures by Flora MC

This is what I mean by technology working to elevate the state of comfort. Is it an example good enough?

Absolutely, thank you. Can you tell two things about this project that people can’t guess from the pictures?

Yes, I can. See the wood around you? It has been chosen meticulously for a specific reason: its scent lowers the heartbeat, giving a sense of calmness and tranquillity.

Details of the wood in the interiors
Picture by Flora MC

Truth to be told, I noticed the good scent of the woods, entering the rooms. What is the second element?

The carpets are a result of our research and they are both antibacterial and antiviral. Right now I have the attention of hospitals for these materials, you can guess they are relevant in their context.

One last question. Yours is a very fascinating and futuristic idea, yet very contemporary and for many aspects incredibly necessary. This is your work, as an Italian architect and biophilic designer. You are also invited in many countries and are active around the world too, so: how do you perceive the attention to the environment, looking at architecture projects worldwide?

You can feel the perception of the changes happening in both the work of architects and in the requirements from clients and even governments. I have good connections with China and I must say that the sense of rigor and attention to environmental sustainability in China has grown exponentially in the last years. A very attentive system that puts eco-sustainability as a top priority, can be definitely met in Brazil, United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Japan. I would say that in many macroeconomic plans, the quality and the healthiness of working and home environments have become essential. A necessity to live in harmony with nature, and integrate it well with our everyday life, is also gaining value and importance. The pandemic has accelerated many processes, including this. In my opinion, it is a very stimulating time for architecture and new design thinking.

That will be all for us, thank you for your time and congratulations on your brilliant ideas.

Anytime! Thank you for visiting my stand!

Massimiliano Mandarini’s website: massimilianomandarini.it

Massimiliano Mandarini on Instagram:@marchingenio_workshop

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Flora MC

About Author

Flora MC

Flora MC is correspondent from Italy for NYSG since September 2018. Passionate about design, technology, with focus on made in Italy, Flora has lived in several European countries where she specialised in communication online, both visual and written and is a polyglot. She studied cultural mediation and European affairs in Italy, visual communication, web design, and original production in Sweden, and commercial photography in the US.

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