Drawing on the past to set the lifestyles of the future: that was the mission of agrAir, the installation designed by Piuarch for “Inhabits” event at Milan Design Week 2018. Located in the middle of piazza Castello in Milan, the project’s key features – lightness, brightness, careful use of resources, eliminating the boundaries between interior and exterior, between natural and artificial spaces - were outlined in a balanced relationship between the elements of earth and air. This relationship was thus figured out by two horizontal layers, parallel to each other. The lower section, at ground level, consisted of a rust colored expanded clay platform, covered by herbs as designed by the landscape designer Cornelius Gavril, which set a dialogue with the brick walls of the Sforza Castle. Parallel to the green basement, a multitude of transparent balloons danced gently, following the movement of the air. It was a cloud, metaphor of a forest but also of the city itself, whose reflections changed color in daytime; at night, it was turned into a fluctuating lantern by the artificial lighting.

©Giovanni Hänninen