In Milan, fashion brand COS unveiled Conifera, a large-scale 3D printed architectural installation made from renewable resources by London-based French architect Arthur Mamou-Mani and his eponymous studio.

“ We are delighted to unveil Conifera, Mamou-Mani’s work is a glimpse of the future; showing what is possible when renewable materials are coupled with modern technological advances that draw inspiration from nature.

Seeing the installation in situ at the palazzo is a realisation of a vision that has evolved through our work together, a combination of our shared interest in craft and innovation.

We hope visitors find it as inspirational as we do, and that the work processes serve to inform the future of design and architecture.” …………  Karin Gustafsson, Creative Director of COS.

“ Conifera blends the digital with the physical world while addressing sustainability through the use of compostable bio-plastic, produced and 3D printed locally.

It is a dialogue between technology and craft, between the manmade and the natural and between monumentality and lightness.

I hope the visitors will appreciate the futuristic high-tech aspect of the installation but also that it is deeply poetic and human.” ………… Arthur Mamou-Mani

Digitally designed and fabricated using innovative 3D printing methods, Conifera is comprised of seven hundred interlocking modular bio-bricks, creating a sculptural pathway of wood and bioplastic composite lattices, woven together to create a journey from the central courtyard of Palazzo Isimbardi to its garden.

As visitors journey through the installation, the architecture of the installation shifts from a wood and bioplastic composite in the courtyard to a translucent and white bioplastic found within the palazzo’s garden, communicating a digitally fabricated bridge between the manmade and the natural world.

Conifera has been conceived in response to an open brief from COS, with the final structure a result of a parametric design process that has seen the installation evolve with each new technological and material innovation throughout its conception.

The piece vertically integrates design and construction, forming a direct connection from design to build through a dialogue with robotics: the architect is at once designer and maker.

Conifera’s modular form offers a legacy for the installation, with the piece able to be reformed in alternate configurations and in response to new contexts

Visitors to Palazzo Isimbardi will be able to observe one of the Delta WASP (World Advance Saving Project)_ 3MT Industrial 3D printers used to fabricate each of the 700 bio-bricks that comprise the installation in action.

The installation marks COS’s eighth consecutive installation during Salone del Mobile and its first collaboration with Mamou-Mani.

Palazzo Isimbardi
Corso Monforte 35