Vibrant neighborhoods

In the industrial building in Milan the apartment stands on a large bright podium, a closed, completely outfitted box. On the free space of the podium the various communal zones are grouped around the compact residential unit. The apartment’s walls, with a wooden look, in part include niches and modular shelves that can be opened from the outside. The wall niches, which usually get left unused, provide the space for a desk, a TV, a washing machine etc. The modular shelves are especially deep and are home to domestic infrastructure, such as the kitchenette or the clothes cupboard. Moreover, they also form the interface between inside and outside as they can be opened like so many windows or doors – onto the shared spaces outside.

In this way, not only is a higher density of living space achieved, but, if required, the private kitchenette can swiftly morph into an open living room-cum-kitchen and the home workstation becomes a co-working space. In this way, the urban base station, which concentrates on the essentials, gives rise to a living neighborhood, a social space that connects people.

Pleasant haven

The two spheres of the private and the shared are clearly demarcated in visual terms: The outside space is bright and light, and the box’s façade is made of untreated wood. On the inside of the Box, the ambience is by contrast muted: The wooden paneling is darker and the fittings pleasantly comfortable. “We wanted to formulate a contrast between inside and outside,” comments Hauser. If you need privacy, you simply close all the flaps and withdraw from the world. Although the apartment has been furnished with much love for detail and very much looks like you could move in tomorrow, MINI LIVING is meant to be a specimen model: “MINI LIVING is a conceptual contribution to the international debate on architecture and design,” Oke Hauser explains.

At home in the city

The Salone del Mobile is the ideal venue for MINI to present new ideas on urban living and present a model of the future in the form of an installation: “This is one of the most important trade fairs for design, and design is one of our core competences, our core standards. We are a very design-focused brand,” Hauser continues. At the same time, the carmaker sees itself as an urban brand: “Our home is the city. To offer people relevant products we need to focus on the city as a whole and think about the solutions needed.”

MINI kicked the project off in Milan and intends to advance the concept ready for the London Design Festival this coming September. We can certainly look forward to what MINI comes up with.