A paradise for those in search of innovative materials and multiple performance features. In Milan, on Foro Buonaparte, Fenix Scenario is a space that brings together and displays all the new developments of the Piedmont-based group Arpa Industriale, including Fenix, Arpa, Formica, GetaLit, Getacore and Homapal. A showroom designed by Studio Gio Tirotto, conceived as “a place where professionals can find materials presented as interactive impressions, as in a true theater.”
Visitors are welcomed by Cirrus, a sculpture by Zaha Hadid from 2008 in black Formica laminate, leading to settings with ceiling structures formulated like flexible stages on which to narrate different stories, along with full-height swivel panels that become screens for video mapping projections. In the window, the installation of Wood-Skin, while the interior offers many examples of furnishings covered with these innovative materials, like desks by Lapalma and workstations by Unifor.
At the heart of the space: a materials library available to designers and architects, and Musa, the acronym for Marketing and Unexpected Solutions for Avant-garde, a workshop in which to imagine and experiment with new approaches and uses of these smart materials.
Fenix Scenario, Milan. Photo © Federico Villa
A stage where visitor-actors can touch and discover all the characteristics of high-nanotech surfaces suitable for vertical and horizontal application, as facings in the kitchen, on tables and chairs, and in bathrooms, for the domestic sector but also for offices and contract projects. Fenix is ideal for the kitchen environment because it stands up to high temperatures, stops fingerprints and offers the possibility of repairing micro-scratches with heat. It is soft to the touch, limits light reflection and offers an elegant matte look. Bloom, one of the latest new developments, is a technology that reduces the quantity of phenol in heat-cured resin by about 50%, utilized in the production of Fenix NTM and Arpa HPL panels, for more sustainable products with structures that investigate and incorporate natural materials and contain a lignin-base resin, a natural polymer, and a sort of glue that holds the wood fibers together.
Fenix Scenario a Milan. Photo © Federico Villa
Participants in the project include: Artemide, CoeLux, Ekinex, FBS, Florim, Kastel, Lapalma, Nobili, Unifor and Wood-Skin.
