Porta Venezia Design District 2026 | DESIGN IS ACT

On the occasion of the upcoming edition of Milano Design Week, Porta Venezia Design District presents Design is Act, a concept inspired by the thinking of Tomás Maldonado, a central figure of 20th-century design who restored to the discipline its ethical, cultural, and political dimension.
For Maldonado, design is never a mere formal exercise, but an act of responsibility and awareness: a critical practice capable of interpreting the present and intervening in reality. To design means to take a position, to assume responsibility for one’s time, and to establish a relationship between memory, knowledge, and transformation.
From this perspective, Design is Act becomes an invitation to consider design as action: a gesture capable of connecting thought and matter, memory and future, imagination and real impact. A process that goes beyond the production of objects, generating relationships, visions, and new possibilities for the way we inhabit the world. 

Following the success of last year’s edition, the district continues to expand: with over 80,000 visitors, a 33% increase compared to 2024, 56 projects and installations (+24%), and more than 350 designers and curators from around the world, PVDD returns with a new evolution of its cultural and urban project. Città Studi Design Hub is born, a new hub extending the district’s reach toward the city’s university area, activating an unprecedented dialogue between design, research, and education. A territory historically linked to scientific and academic innovation becomes, during Design Week, an open laboratory for design experimentation. This expansion marks a further step in the growth of one of the most dynamic hubs of the Fuorisalone.
The debut of Città Studi Design Hub is marked by a major site-specific installation: OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER, a project by 6:AM - GLASSWORKS hosted in the spaces of the historic Piscina Romano. A work that perfectly embodies the theme Design is Act, transforming the design gesture into a spatial device capable of generating experience. 

For the 2026 edition, the district takes shape as a diffused route of design experiences interpreting design as an active gesture in dialogue with the territory, capable of generating reflections on materials, technology, culture, and society.