Faye Toogood’s Super Follies project was created small architectural structures for Italian company Nobody & Co within a private Milanese garden of the late nineteenth century.

Set in the Porta Venezia area ( Via Palestro 6 )  the British designer Toogood oversaw Super Follies, an evocative and ironic exhibition in one of the most unusual and unexpected location of the Milan Design Week: the Garden of Arts.

Super Follies was set in the ” Garden of the Arts ” – a 2,000 sq mtr private garden from the late 1800s in the centre of Milan, with 49 different tree species, including specimens of European beech, magnolia, white elm, ailanthus (known as tree of heaven), deodar cedar, and sycamore.

Various bird species were hidden amidst the treetops and the shrubs: kestrel, common swift, chaffinch, house sparrow, robin, great tit, jackdaw.

It was a welcome secret paradise in which to rediscover the beauty of nature, an oasis in which to linger, taking a break from the frenetic pace of the city.

Within this Super Follies installation Italian co Nobody & C0 ( owners Alisée Matta and Giovanni Gennari ) presented their new 2017 collections in small extravagant architectural structures reminiscent of the Follies which were in vogue in the English gardens of the eighteenth century.

The installation was set in the Garden Of Arts (Via Palestro 8), a real hidden oasis that the public could explore armed with an exclusive waterproof and a hand drawn map from the same Toogood.

Inside the Secret Garden, Faye Toogood has made a series of ” Wooden Follies” with ironic and colorful shapes – small architectural features of northern European extravagant gardens – in which were exhibited the creations of Nobody & Co.

“It was tremendous fun – I was inspired by farm buildings and we played on the idea of architectural Folly, creating spaces a bit ‘naive where discover the new collection of Nobody & co. ” … Faye Toogood

Super Follies creative design team – Paul-Simmons ( Timorous Beasties ) Faye Toogood, Alisée Matta and Giovanni Gennari ( nobody & co ), Giò Thomas-Downes,, Francesca Sarti ( arabeschi ) Jan Rose, Erica Toogood

Alisée Matta and Giovanni Gennari owners of Nobody & Co Italy.

Wild Bakery

Breakfast Bakery delicacies were beautifully prepared by Arabeschi di Latte

The event also offered visitors a unique food experience thanks to the contribution of Arabeschi di Latte

Contemporary Vermouth

Midday and evening drinks were sponsored by Oscar 697 vermouth

Super Follies – new products 

Pet Table

Pet Tables are fun tables from animal forms of legs equipped with folding joints

Missing Ocean

Relog

The Relog Chair from the semicircular convex geometries is entirely made with scraps of wood processing.

Sliced Bookshelf

Uphill

Uphill, a special outdoor chair with adjustable legs designed to solve the instability due to the typical uneven ground leveraging of the saddles of bicycles technology;

Missing Piece chairs

Winner of a Milano Design Award 2017

Unicorn Prize

The exhibition that shows an innovation seed in exhibition design, breaking the rules and traces a future design direction within the exhibition design field.

Concept Project Preparations

” When Nobody & Co. showed me the garden chosen for the preparation to imagine a project on how to communicate their new products. The first thing I thought is that it could rain, since we are in Milan! So I created these homes to hold and protect the objects and I thought how to draw a travel path inside the secret garden.

The folly is not necessary architecture, pure pleasure and fun with which you can interact, for example by opening the small windows or doors and spy to discover the objects inside.”

……….  Faye Toogood

” For me being out, being in nature is very important. I grew up in the English countryside, my childhood was rural. The Super Follies are in fact primitive figures that evoke the architecture of farms. ”

” The real starting point for this project, is being in touch with my childish side, being in contact with the first forms of creativity and imagination free characteristics of children .

So my design can take on an ironic tone “.

About Faye Toogood

Faye Toogood was born in the UK in 1977

She graduated with a BA in the History of Art in 1998 from Bristol University.

She founded “Studio Toogood” in 2008 and “Faye Toogood” in 2010, both in London.

Faye Toogood lives and works in London.

Her furniture and objects demonstrate a preoccupation with materiality and experimentation.

All of her pieces are handmade by small-scale fabricators and traditional artisans, with an honesty to the rawness and irregularity of the chosen material.

With an academic training in the theory and practise of fine art, and a vocational background at the forefront of the magazine industry, Toogood approaches product design with a singular and acutely honed eye.

Her highly sculptural work, while showing an astute respect for the past, is derived from pure self-expression and instinct.

Toogood’s objects are grouped together into her trademark numbered ‘Assemblages’.

This allows her to avoid the formulaic, to experiment with the materials and processes that dominate her thinking at a particular time. With each Assemblage, she engages not only with the products themselves but also with the three-dimensional space in which they are exhibited, working across multiple disciplines to create a single body of work with an intuitive and unified narrative.

About Nobody & Co

Nobody&Co. is an interiors and exteriors design company based in Milan, Italy.

Founded by Alisée Matta and Giovanni Gennari in 2005.

“Problems are always the best inspirations. Eighteen years ago we lived in a tiny flat full of books but with nowhere to sit.That same year we drew the first Bibliochaise: a cube to sit in with slots all around to put books in. Geometry is magic, every time you draw a cube or a square something wonderful can happen.”

Alisée Matta and Giovanni Gennari began work together as an advertising team in 1994.

The full expression of their creative partnership was realized in 2005 when they shifted from the abstract to the concrete and established the Milan design studio, .nobody&co., where they began design production uniquely characterized by their playful association with thought and language.

Nobody&co made its debut at the Milan 2006 Salone Internazionale del Mobile with la Bibliochaise, the armchair-library that holds 5 metres of books; the Piola bookcase, an original book-shelving system; and il Buddino, the pudding mould shaped liked a buddha.

In 2007 at Spazio Rossana Orlandi we present the Comfort Table, Flower Power Vase a limited edition of platinum plated vases made by Bottega Gatti and Piccolo Grande a limited edition of outdoor furniture.

In 2008 always at Spazio Rossana Orlandi we present the Missing Chairs.

In 2009 at Superstudio we exhibit Four Mathematical Rooms with Bosa for whom we design Liliana Vase and Liliana Lamp and we present the Scroll Table with textiles by the fantastic Timorous Beasties.

To showcase our design up to 2009, we launch the Catabook, a limited edition catalogue book magically styled by Studio Toogood at key National Trust locations, with photography by Tom Mannion.

To elevate the visual statement of the Catabook, we trimmed the book-base so that it protrudes at an angle, allowing it to uniquely stand out from other volumes crowding the bookshelf.

In 2011 at Tent London we present Sliced bookshelf, L Double Table and Bibliochaise Luna as a limited edition collection we named: A Space Odyssey 2011.

During the April design week in Milan, in 2013 the Bibliochaise and Bibliopouf are part of the exhibition “Intorno al Liibro” curated by Beppe Finessi at the Poldi Pezzoli in Milan.

In May 2013, as a world premier in London for INTERIORS LDN 2013, we proudly presented the limited edition 24 carat Gold Bibliochaise.

From March to October 2015 we are delighted that Outdoorz Gallery have been asked to show la Bibliochaise as part of Make Yourself Comfortable at Chatsworth—a landmark interactive contemporary seating exhibition at the magnificent historic property, Chatsworth House.

In April 2015 during the milanese Fuorisalone, we presented the prototypes for our new collection UNDERWATER PROJECTS in the Brera Design District, in via Statuto 13.

In October of these projects we shall be launching our Nuvola Cloud showerhead in porcelain and our Spiral outdoor shower.