Extreme Environments

On the occasion of Milano Design Week, the leading international event for the design world, NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, in collaboration with CIAL, Consorzio Nazionale per il Riciclo degli Imballaggi in Alluminio, presents the installation “Extreme Environments”. Curated by Claudio Larcher, Design Area Leader, designer and Lecturer Andrea Mancuso, Luca Poncellini, Design and Applied Arts Department Head, Michele Aquila, Course Leader of the MA in Creative Media Production and Sofia D’Andrea, Design Area Academic Assistant, the project stems from a shared research path involving students from the Design Area for the aluminium installations, and the students from the BA in Creative Media Production, who developed the multimedia content.

A cura di Claudio Larcher, NABA Design Area Leader, Andrea Mancuso, designer e docente NABA, Luca Poncellini, NABA Design and Applied Arts Department Head, Michele Aquila, Course Leader del Biennio Specialistico in Creative Media Production e da Sofia D’Andrea, Design Academic Assistant, il progetto nasce da un percorso di ricerca condivisa che ha coinvolto gli studenti dell’Area Design per le installazioni in alluminio e quelli del Biennio Specialistico in Creative Media Production. per lo sviluppo dei contenuti audiovisivi.

On view from 21 to 26 April 2026, the installation will be hosted in one of Milan’s most iconic historic buildings, Palazzo Litta (Corso Magenta, 24), as part of MoscaPartners Variations 2026, the collective exhibition that celebrates design through constantly evolving visions and which, in this edition, explores the theme of Metamorphosis.

“Extreme Environments” invites visitors to reflect on how design can react, adapt, and generate new visions in extreme contexts: from vertical cities to remote places, from prohibitive temperatures to situations of significant social fragility, exploring limits and new possibilities. The environment, in fact, can no longer be considered exclusively as nature or landscape: extreme temperatures, overcrowded cities contrasted with silent desert spaces, technologies that amplify perception, while natural environments are shrinking. The very concept of “environment” today goes beyond the natural landscape; it also includes climate conditions, habitable space, and social and cultural ecosystems.

“Extreme Environments” will welcome visitors to Palazzo Litta with an immersive, research-driven experience that explores new perceptual relationships between space, matter, and the individual through physical and archetypal signs. Sculptural totems made of aluminium sheets, integrated with video content displayed on an LED screen, will be the elements interacting with the historic space through contrasts between natural and artificial, lightness and solidity, reflection and distortion, transforming metal surfaces into perceptual devices capable of amplifying and reinterpreting the experience of space.