Tomorrow Living – Exhibition | Salone del Mobile 2022

On stage at the MEET Digital Culture Center throughout the Salone del Mobile period, June 5-12 (10 a.m. to 7 p.m. 00), Tomorrow Living, a project of Huawei Milan Aesthetic Research Center co-created with Maria Grazia Mattei, founder and president of MEET, which includes the screening of four documentaries collecting the interviews and visions of as many as 30 international experts, enriched by The Global Home, a site-specific immersive experience conceived by the famous and multifaceted Studio Space Popular to transport us sensorially into new scenarios of living in a mixed-reality future.

How will we live in our homes in the future? How will these be designed and what role will digital technology play? These questions form the basis of the research project on the future of living transformed by technology, launched by Huawei Milan Aesthetic Research Center and curated by Robert Thiemann, editor-in-chief of Frame magazine, which constitutes the first part of the exhibition-the nationwide premiere screening of the important research carried out by Huawei in the form of a docu-Series.

In fact, as many as 30 international experts among the most influential designers, architects, artists and scientists were surveyed to find the answers: Michele de Lucchi, Nicholas Bewick and Davide Angeli, Hans Vermeulen, Jenn Ellis and Belli Allan, Carlo Ratti, Alexis Christodoulou , Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto , Nicolas Henchoz , Professor Pascale Fung , Itai Palti , Krista Kim , Benjamin Hubert , Enrico De Lotto and George Kolliopoulos ), Marjan van Aubel , Seetal Solanki , Sara Ricciardi , Patrick Lam , Tjeerd Haccou, Sascha Glasl and Marthijn Pool , Lara Lesmes and Frederik Hellberg , Jenny Lee, teamLab (International Artists Collective), Ben van Berkel.

Their visions project us into a near future where smart, distributed technology allows us to reconnect with nature, optimize consumption and space, empower communities, and create new housing scenarios. The documentary series consists of four episodes that will be screened for the first time at MEET.

Each episode of the series explores a theme that will define the future of intelligent and conscious living.

RESPONSIVE: Personalizing and Improving Our Lives at Home-the first docu-series (running 29:21 minutes) focuses on making habitats more adapted to our changing needs and circumstances. It investigates how technologies such as artificial intelligence and 5G can make homes smarter and how robots will make personal support and health care available for the lonely, elderly and disabled-a true celebration of technology. Virtual realities overlay physical spaces, becoming habitable digital spaces. Carlo Ratti says, “Artificial intelligence is making our buildings, but also our cities and objects, more and more like the natural world, something that reacts dynamically. Today, with technology, with sensors and AI, the skin of architecture can begin to respond to us in a new, much more fluid way.”

RESILIENT: Self-Resilient Communities – Online and Offline – the second docu-series investigates how homes, neighborhoods and cities can become more resilient (running time 24:59 minutes). The goal is to create a future-proof habitat that is able to change itself and facilitate connections between people, because only through cultural exchange do we have a chance to evolve this world into a better place to live. Through an ecosystem of technologies (including digital twin, big data, solar technology), cities become archipelagos of self-sufficient, connected neighborhoods: the Earth Stations envisioned by Michele De Lucchi and the democratic neighborhoods of Space&Matter are visionary examples. Explains De Lucchi, “The architecture of Earth Stations wants to create a place where different communities intertwine. I think of medieval cathedrals, which I think are the best example to represent the contemporary world. Today we need symbols, places where we can find reasons to go and where we can share knowledge, skills and emotions. New generation cathedrals, spaces to hope for a new humanity.”

RESTORATIVE: Domestic Refuges and Experiences That Envelop Us-Third (running 21:59 minutes) examines how homes and our environments more generally can become sanctuaries and places of emotional and physical well-being. Will technology lend a hand in creating an environment that can really help individuals and society be more balanced and feel safe? Artists and designers will use technology to conceive objects and spaces that put mental and physical health first. Think of Krista Kim’s gradient and giant, music-supported LEDs and Nicholas Henchoz’s meditation tools. “We introduce lights and works that make us feel good: they don’t overstimulate us, but, on the contrary, they slow down the brain and lower the rate of breathing. It’s about visual relaxation and using colors as ways to heal,” says Krista Kim.

RESPONSIBLE: Visions for a Sustainable Domestic Future-the latest episode (running 25:15 minutes) focuses on a vision of what sustainability will mean in the future, changing paradigms and challenging the systems in which we currently operate. It is an episode about hope and revolution, about a radical shift in thinking for people and institutions, as well as infrastructure. Digital offers many tools for the circular economy as well as for zero-emission energy consumption efficiency. Learning from nature and working together with nature will be the key to a healthier planet. “We can only be responsible by looking at design and architecture through the magnifying glass of urgent questions,” says Ippolito Pastellini Laparelli, Founder of the interdisciplinary agency 2050+.

The docu-series projected on a continuous loop in the Galleries of MEET Digital Culture Center, the first International Center for Digital Art and Culture established in Milan with the support of Fondazione Cariplo, is enriched with the site-specific multi-sensory work by Space Popular – The Global Home – which, in a sense, makes a visual and immersive synthesis of the various concepts expressed in Tomorrow Living.