The evolution of Superstudio: Superstudio Design

In 2026, Superstudio becomes Superstudio Design. At Milan Design Week 2026, it presents itself with three locations and three different concepts: SuperNova at Superstudio Più, SuperCity at Superstudio Maxi, and SuperPlayground at the new Superstudio Village, in the Bovisa-Certosa area. We spoke with Gisella Borioli, art director and founder of Superstudio Group, and Laura Vella, architect and head of Superstudio Design, about the new direction of Superstudio.

Discover the new Superstudio chapter

The new Superstudio Village

Gisella Borioli: the new era

After 26 years of the Temporary Design Museum and the Superdesign Show, 2026 marks the birth of Superstudio Design. Three locations, one mission: to spread design culture. What is the root of this need for rebranding?

We have grown, in many senses. And when you grow, evolution follows naturally. This rebranding highlights a change of pace that has been both built and planned. The arrival at my side ten years ago of my very young nephew, Tommaso Borioli, fresh from his degree, brought new energy and fresh visions. These have intertwined with my own, which are rooted in time, creating what I believe is a unique formula that blends business, design, art, and culture at its core.

Today, the moment for a breakthrough has arrived. We are putting all our cards on the table, starting with the four Milanese venues we have regenerated from old, abandoned factories. We have transformed them into sustainable and technologically advanced cultural hubs, which have influenced both the outskirts where they are located and the city itself. It is an even greater commitment that will see Tommaso and his young team focused on events and international development, while I, with my collaborators, focus on culture, art, training, publishing, and other open-minded ideas.

Discover Superstudio Design 2026 – SuperNova at Superstudio Più 

Superdesign Show at Superstudio Più

New exhibition format

Moooi is returning to Superstudio Più, the very place where they began 25 years ago. What has changed at Superstudio Più in 25 years?

That innovative, fun, spectacular, surprising, and even “easy-going” spirit – captured in our ‘less fair, more museum’ and ‘wow’ factor format – has now become a common language. Even the Salone itself has ‘Fuorisalone-ized’ its approach, grafting cultural elements onto the purely commercial foundation of its history.
Thus today, following its evolution, we are tackling new exhibition formats for design that move in diverse directions. Through the themes of past-present-future, sustainability, advanced technology, dematerialization, AI, research, and imagination, we are revisiting every trend. We are on the threshold of a new world, waiting to be discovered. With so many square meters dedicated to design, the original message of Superstudio Più will become even deeper and more engaging. Because this is what design is today: something that interests an ever-wider audience and concerns everyone’s life.

Discover Superstudio Design 2026: SuperCity at Superstudio Maxi

Superstudio, photo Riccardo Diotallevi, courtesy Superstudio

Laura Vella: Superstudio Design takes curatorial approach to another level

It seems that Superstudio is moving beyond its role as a “container” to become more of a producer of content, specifically in design. Is that the case?

Superstudio has always been a collector of projects selected based on qualitative criteria. However, it is also true that this year we have raised the bar, pushing ourselves a bit beyond our traditional boundaries.
While the SuperNova concept somehow reaffirms the Tortona spaces as the home of high-quality, large-scale, site-specific installations – always under the banner of a narrative that focuses on the quality of big names – on the other hand, it is with SuperCity and SuperPlayground that our curatorial approach is expressed even more explicitly.

At Superstudio Maxi, Giulio Cappellini has curated an event for us that recreates an urban scenario where design, architecture, and art merge. This is achieved through the choice of true artistic interventions or museum-like sections, following a general “orchestration” where major Italian design brands allow themselves to be guided by Cappellini’s vision.
SuperPlayground is the direct result of a meticulous and precise selection process. Our international open call was a huge success, receiving over 200 applications. We have landed with about thirty exhibitors from all over the world. With each of them, we have done “bespoke” work regarding the products and the proposals, and we are very happy with the result.

Discover Superstudio Design 2026: SuperPlayground at Superstudio Village

SuperCity 2026, exhibition ‘Design Awakens’

Superdesign: Designing logistics

SuperNova (Superstudio Più), SuperCity (Superstudio Maxi), and SuperPlayground (Superstudio Village) are three enormous spaces with decidedly complex logistics. Can design also be the common thread in managing logistics?

All three spaces are very large (30,000 square meters in total), and the logistics are very intricate; this is very true, even more so when considering that each venue is a piece of a larger project that holds everything together (Superstudio Design). Despite twenty years of experience at Superstudio Più, the complexities change every year and solutions are always reasoned ad hoc; there is no single formula. This certainly applies to Superstudio Maxi as well, and even more so to the Village, which is opening to the public for the first time on this very occasion. Superstudio Design has teams dedicated to these aspects, one per venue, and it is undoubtedly only through clear logistical planning that one manages to make this enormous orchestra play. Design understood as a project is certainly a guiding thread in this aspect of the event as well.

SupeRavioli, by Paola Navone for ABK Stone, at Superstudio Più

What is the watchword that links these three locations in 2026? Just one word?
Perhaps two: quality and selection.

Superstudio Design: the mentorship

SuperPlayground, the new hub in Bovisa, is dedicated entirely to emerging talents. What has changed in 26 years regarding emerging talents? How do they present themselves and what do they present?

SuperPlayground is the stage we have designated for emerging figures, a precise choice that we think of as the beginning of a new story in Milan Design Week. My feeling is that there is plenty of room for free creative approaches that are simultaneously capable of looking at the past fruitfully, without erasing it, but reworking it, and also looking at the needs of the individual without being flattened by the “standard.”

Every proposal is personal; each of the designers or brands involved has interpreted this playground with their own sensitivity, and the result is transversal: installation-based and almost sculptural approaches, many projects related to light, seating and tables that investigate the themes of play (between tradition and the present), “irreverent” and sometimes provocative furniture products, colorful objects with a “cheerful” design, experimentation with materials, the use of waste materials for the production of furniture and floral sculptures…. A kaleidoscope of proposals anchored in the contemporary world that investigate its issues and themes and that speak of the future.

Riccardo Toldo at SuperPlayground

Big brands vs. emerging talents: main differences

What is the difference between managing large-scale setups for big brands and managing collectives of emerging talents?

One might think that complexities are directly proportional to the size of the setup, and in many cases, this is indeed the case (the installations that characterize SuperNova, for example, often benefit from large specialized production teams belonging to the individual brand, which design and manage most of the many complexities in constant alignment with the dedicated Superstudio team).

However, those who work in this field know that managing a collective requires an immense amount of attention, strong organization, and a lot of time, to be spent first talking to and meeting each of the exhibitors (something I care about particularly), discussing solutions and possibilities together, and then approaching the practical implementation phase, providing for the specific needs of the individual project while always having the broader picture of the entire operation clearly in mind. Furthermore, while on one hand, the big brand already has all the experience and knows perfectly how to do everything or almost everything, sometimes with emerging talents one deals with first-time participations, little experience, or lack of familiarity with an event of this type, and it is necessary to walk the path together step by step, from start to finish.

Digital pass: how to manage the long lines

The digital pass allows access to the three locations with a single registration. Will this also facilitate queue management? How is traffic flow management addressed to make the visit as smooth as possible?

The digital pass is a tool that Superstudio has been using for years now, an immense value that allows us to manage flows, stay informed about attendance numbers, and qualitatively profile our audience with actual data rather than random numbers.
We are accustomed to, and above all, prepared for managing large numbers at the entrance. Any type of queue is managed in an extremely fluid manner, also and especially because the registration tool is agile and the infrastructure, built ad hoc, is very solid and has been subjected to significant stress tests over the years.<br>The rest is handled by the design of people flows within the spaces, using specific layouts, as well as the enhancement and promotion of light mobility systems, inviting visitors to reach the venues using electric bikes and scooters from our mobility partner.

Does AI help/can it help in the overall management of the project? And how?

Artificial intelligence is an excellent work tool. We use it at multiple levels, and it is certainly excellent for hypothesizing scenarios based on data sets and the vast amount of information we gather from the event’s history. It is very useful (especially in terms of speed) also for the creation of all those views and renders that help us in our choices regarding setups. It is a truly useful tool and a support for what remains, however, truly indispensable: the quality of the people who use it.

The big events: the sustainability

Large events pose the problem of post-event disposal: how is a large event approached from the perspective of sustainability in 2026?

Sustainability in the world of events is a large and complex theme that involves different scales of intervention.
The first – the most immediate and yet still complex – is linked to the selection of suppliers who meet certain criteria, the search for sustainable or reusable materials for space setups, the optimization of transport, the careful management of waste disposal, and a general design approach that looks beyond the single event to reason on a multi-year scale. At Superstudio Design, we carry all of these forward with improvements year after year, in the awareness that while we are doing a lot, there is still much that can be done. Indeed, a significant ambition is to work toward achieving all the objectives necessary to obtain ISO 20121 certification specifically at the event scale.

Superstudio Più

The second dimension of intervention for Superstudio concerns the spaces and venues themselves – how consumption is managed and waste is reduced. Back in 2023, we already obtained ISO 20121 certification for Superstudio Più and Superstudio Maxi; certification for the brand-new Superstudio Village is also in the works, which additionally aims for Leed Platinum certification.
All of this goes along with an increasing effort in measuring the impact of events through tools that allow us to quantify consumption and the waste produced, defining concrete goals for improvement. In this process, the involvement of the client is fundamental, as they are guided toward conscious and sustainable design choices.

Uneven Objects at SuperPlayground 2026