RAFFAELLA MANGIAROTTI

My name is Raffaella Mangiarotti. I am an architect and designer.

I have worked and continueto work in academia and I currently teach design at Politecnico di Milano. I also hold a PhDdegree in environmental sustainability.

I really like the environmental impact and theecological aspects of products.

I have worked for many years in the field of product design, creating objects that also involve technology, from electrical household appliances toconsumer electronics products, as well as many other objects in various sectors where I havealways tried to think and focus on innovation with a sense of care at its core. For example, together with my colleague Matteo, I designed a washing machine that washes usingcentripetal force instead of centrifugal force, so it’s based on a completely different designconcept, more like hand washing.

Then, for example, I worked on a hair-dryer that doesn’tdamage the hair, I designed folding electric brooms that don’t force you to bend your back, a hair drying glove. Through these kinds of products, I had the pleasure to explore a vision ofthe future where the theme focused not so much on technical or technological performance of the product, but rather on expressing a sense of care, a product that takes care of the personit’s made for.

In the last ten to fifteen years, let’s say, partly just out of personal passion, I started to design furniture and glassware, objects with shorter development periods. Forexample, in the collection I designed for Smeg, I know that from the conception phase to themarket launch of the product, it took nearly two and a half years to develop and finalize allthe processes of production and fine-tuning and so on.

So the earlier projects were long-termones whereas the furniture design is, let’s say, faster and it allows you to be more involved in the project especially through prototyping.

There is more hands-on work involved. In theother kind of projects, once the product design is completed, someone else takes over forproduction, but in furniture projects, you can participate and get more involved in the processand I really enjoyed that.

Now over the past fifteen years, I’ve been designing a lot of furniture, lamps and also other home furnishing elements and accessories. I like it very muchand I also do some art direction as a part of that work.