The Elita Salone Design Award recognizes the best exhibition staged during Milan Design Week .

This year, the prize was awarded to the ECAL / University of Art and Design, Lausanne for their “Delirious Home” exhibition shown at Spazio Orso 16 in Milan.

“Delirious Home” was a project directed by Alain Bellet and Chris Kabel and featured a series of objects presenting a playful interpretation take on the concept of the “Smart Home”.

It was developed by Bachelor students in Industrial Design and Media & Interaction Design at the ECAL.

“Delirious Home” was comprised of ten projects that explore the relationship between industrial design and interaction design. Naoto Fukasawa, believes that the former will eventually be subsumed into the latter as our needs converge into fewer objects thanks to technology.

ECAL students teach us to take control of the latest techniques and appliances we thought controlled us.

The students demonstrated their artful mastery of electronics, mechanics and interaction, developing a new kind of esthetic which goes further than just a formal approach.

For one semester, the ECAL students worked in groups to concoct – –

Friendly mirrors that reflect only our image when we look at them, and as soon as you move away it becomes solid //  Hypersensitive cacti that if they are stroked emit sounds // Two armchairs that invite you to enjoy a lively and meaningful  “tête-à-tête”, as they each reacts to the movements of the sitter in the other // A  series of domes for covering food that when lifted produce harmonious sounds to celebrate food tasting // A group of containers that defies the laws of gravity // A clock that instead of showing the time imitates our gestures // A very accommodating curtain //  A fan that is powered by the amplified breath of the visitor // A spoon able to follow a cup wherever it goes.

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What will the home of the future be like?.

It’s fair to say that some of these creations are completely impractical, but they all raise questions about our future interaction with household objects and they do so in the quirkiest way possible.

The video below, which features all of the projects, is well worth watching in full:

Technology—or more precisely electronics—is often added to objects in order to let them sense us, automate our tasks or to make us forget them.  Unfortunately until now technology has not become a real friend.

Technology has become smart but without a sense of humor, let alone quirky unexpected behavior. This lack of humanness became the starting point to imagine a home where reality takes a different turn, where objects behave in an uncanny way.

After all; does being smart mean that you have to be predictable ?

These apparently common objects and furniture pieces have been carefully concocted to change and question our relationship with them and home owners.

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Thanks to the development of easily programmable sensors, affordable embedded computers and mechanical components, designers can take control of a promised land of possibilities. A land that until now was thought to belong to engineers and technicians.

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About The Elita Milano Design Awards

The best project to combine the conceptual aspects with the visual aspects, maintaining a poetic vision of every single creative work, combining research, irony and practicality.

Now in its fourth edition, the Milan Design Award confirms a wonderful adventure to discover Milan during the Salone.

It remains the most prestigious award assigned during the Design Week, it is uniquely dedicated to the “Best Presentations” during the Salone

Awards were given out at the Teatro Franco Parenti on Sunday 13 April, 2014 by the judging committee of

Cristina Tajani – “Fashion & Design” Council Member of Comune di Milano

Claudio Luti – Cosmit President and

Patricia Urquiola – designer and winner of Milano Design Award 2013.

The Salone Design Award is an initiative organized by Elita in collaboration with La Repubblica, Internet Explorer , FDI, Future Concept Lab and Fuorisalone.it

For 2014, the award was won by ECAL – Ecole Cantonal d’Art de Lausanne – ” Delirious Home ” – ” the project that has best been able to combine the conceptual with the visual impact and the poetic dimension of each work , combining research, practice and irony .”

Among the other prize-winners in the various categories :

for Citizen light

Citizen , Light is Time won the Best Sound and Best Entertaining for involving the public in an emotional dimension of entertainment, in close relation with the unique qualities of the product;

Logotel , TimeScapes for Best Tech.

Maarten Baas

Marten Baas , Baas is in Town won the Best Impact for the expression of a deep thought on the social and economic change , through a vision irreverent and playful .

Bolon www.bolon.com the site dedicated to the line of Bolon silence because it represents the vision for the future of the web .

Valentina Ventrelli , head of the fashion industry of Future Concept Lab: …… “This competition is taking a leading role , thanks to its vocation to bring together different actors , unexpected points of view , fostering collaboration between designers , entrepreneurs, institutions and citizenship . I hope that the Milan Design Award in the future become a compass for orientation in a week that the show, in which creativity and the desire to share ideas and projects makes Milan a truly special place , open, unique and friendly . “