For a long time, domestic space and furniture design in Italy has been at the forefront of shaping the interaction between making and living in a home. Its legacy of seeing design goods as part of systems rather than isolated items has impacted how things are done in Europe and the US. Adapting that approach to the Asian setting opens up new trajectories for reimagining and refurbishing the current housing stock.

In this way, “Re-frame Retrofitting as Infrastructure for Future Living” is not just a collection of elegant furniture or new material. It provides a way to think about how the design of individual products can shape the home itself. It shows how changing a chair or a shelving unit can affect the perception of the rhythms and forms of urban housing.

The exhibition features items that generate versatile and scalable housing solutions utilising materials that can be repurposed and reused. These construction techniques build on what has come before to generate innovations and ways of using space that go against conventional notions of domesticity. The exhibition shows how design objects can tell a story, express a thought, and reveal the creativity and skill of the people who design and make things. Such “making things with care” is the cultural landscape to fully appreciate and enjoy Italian design.