DESIGN BY BASAGLIA ROTA NODARI

The Secret Life of Objects

When we design an object, we inevitably imagine the world around it too. A place, an atmosphere, a way of living with it.
We mentally construct a scene in which that product seems to find its natural place.

Then, however, something far more interesting happens: the object leaves the studio, meets other people, and begins a life we hadn’t foreseen.

This happened with the collection of outdoor furniture we designed for Spazio Milani.

During the project, we had imagined it immersed in the quiet of a villa on Lake Como: terraces overlooking the water, vegetation, architecture, and landscape.

Some time later, that same furniture became the protagonist of a completely different scenario: Piazza San Babila, on the occasion of the event organized by Barilla for the Monza Grand Prix.

From the tranquility of a lakeside villa to the energy of one of the most urban places in the city. We could never have imagined it. And that’s exactly what makes it beautiful.

A similar story concerns another one of our projects: the ping pong table designed for Fas Pendezza.

We had imagined it as an object capable of introducing a moment of pause, connection, and play into workspaces.

Then a couple of gallerists chose it for their live-in atelier. And right there, in a domestic setting far removed from the one it was originally conceived for, the table became the star of the Marie Claire Maison cover.

Here the table found a completely new dimension: set within a historic architecture, it engages with the existing spaces and the artworks on display, becoming part of a cultured, personal, and ever-evolving environment.

These are episodes that remind us of something we often forget while designing: objects have a secret life.

We can define their proportions, materials, details, and imagine the context in which they’ll live. But once they leave our studio, they also belong to the gaze of others.

Interior designers, architects, and the people who choose them are capable of interpreting them in ways we hadn’t foreseen, building new relationships between objects, spaces, and people.

And this is perhaps one of the most surprising parts of our work.

Discovering that a design can adapt, transform, and find meanings different from those it was born from.

Because designing an object means imagining a possible story.