Dandelion floor, Tecnodelta. Design by Matteo Bazzicalupo & Raffaella Mangiarotti, photo by Yoshie Nishikawa

Raffaella is a designer that lives and works in Milan. After a degree in Architecture at Politecnico in Milan she founded the Deepdesign studio with Matteo Bazzicalupo dealing with design e cooperating with business such us Barilla, Castelli Haworth, Coin, Coop, Daimler Chrysler, Fratelli Rossetti, Turin’s 2006 Olympic Games, Kraft, Imetec, Mandarina Duck, Panasonic and Whirlpool Europe. She has been awarded in contests such us Young & Design, Cosmopack, Esaedro, ID Award, Selezione Compasso d’Oro and her lamp “Dandelion” has been presented in MoMa’s permanent collection in New York. Raffaella is preparing her exhibition for Triennale in Milano.

Pulse, Whirlpool. Design by deepdesign, 2002, photo by Santi Caleca, I.D.Award, 2004

Could you please tell us more about Deepdesign?
Deepdesign is an experiment born fifteen years ago that grows every day. Deepdesign is me and my partner Matteo Bazzicalupo, together with a great assistant, Antonio Aric, and two young women designers. This year I hope to be able to work on interesting projects to strengthen our identity. I think it’s a very special moment for us, beautiful and energetic, there is a creative affinity and human team also with the new entries: we are a small study, a family with a great synergy!

What is the project you have done that you are most proud of? Why?
Surely the centripetal strength washing-machine for Whirlpool (ID award 2003) and hairdryer (Wind) that definitely calls into question the kind of product. In any case, I am endeared to al new projects, for small it can be: for me it’s anyhow a new and wonderful adventure, for which I must build a point of view, a new personal history that I want to tell.  A project can be small o big, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is to create a personal history that makes that idea yours. We work on our philosophy and identity and try to develop distinguishable products that are our way of thinking. Only if I find this personal point of view, I can give the most, what the client wants from me, my “most”, not the absolute. To project is not a sport were you try to be the fastest or the strongest. Instead, trying to be the best of yourself, of your mind in certain conditions in a certain moment. It’s not always successful; sometimes I’ve failed in my purposes. But I always try to give the most, and in this I’m manic, I continue to see the object until I see the most expressive shape. I’m obsessed with whatever regards aesthetic and for this it’s very difficult for me to buy clothes and objects, luckily!

Cross Table. Design by deepdesign, 2002, photos by Corrado Crisciani

You are also a teacher at Politecnico in Milan: what would you suggest to a person that wants to undertake your career?
To be curios and modest , to understand why things have always been done in a certain way and not in another and to prepare for a very long rise through the lines and earn very little,  vice versa let it fly…

You’re from Pavia and you are now based in Milan: what do you like and dislike in these cities?
About Pavia I like the architectural, the palaces, the river and the streets with bikes… but today I fell it a little small, I like to go back to, but maybe not remain; in Milan I have the opportunity to work and meet interesting people, but I do not like the natural environment, I find it ugly, I would like they opened the “navigli”, the only hope to humanize it, but they are afraid to lose square metres. Nowadays I would like to live maybe in Paris or Barcelona.

What are your favourite places in Milan that you’d recommend to visit?
I like the Triennale, I think it’s an international deep-breathing area, I love the great glass windows the frame the park. Besides, it’s one of the rare active places of the town. Sometime, I go there just for lunch.

What are your favourite magazines? Why?
I love Monitor, I-D, yesterday I have seeing a beautiful one, Manifesto, are various the magazines I like and that I would like to read. I like reading, very much. The only point is that, I would like to rise the level of criticism with which products are selected and the ability to narrate, but you cant’s have all, right?

Who is your role model? Or the most interesting woman you met?
There are lots of women I appreciate. I like Cristina Morozzi with her sensibility and intelligent seduction, like narrating ability and audacious Lee Ederkoort, or pride and intelligence of Eleonora Fiorani.
Amongst youths I’m interested in the intelligent pragmatism and understatement of Silvana Annichiarico… in substance I’m mostly fascinated by women than man in this period, especially of those that can make of femininity there strength.

Flat Piano Table with sliding piano, deepdesign prototype with Omnidecor and Gem, 2006

Sat, ultra flat cooking plane, Whirlpool, design by deepdesign, 1998

Raffaella Mangiarotti, photo by Laila Pozzo

Is there a medium / technique that you haven’t tried yet that you’d like to experiment in the future?
If you mean technical instruments, in this moment I’m fascinated by the idea of thinking of a world that has fewer tools.
We are thinking of reducing energetic us, experimenting ideas for manual tools and other objects with no energy.
We have consumed too much, even for really stupid things!

Who is the woman you’d like to see featured/ interviewed here?
Eleonora Fiorani.

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