KUO DUO. WORD PLAY: OBJECTS

Lapalma, a company that manufactures and sells designer furniture and furnishing systems for the home and the contract sector worldwide, continues to explore new expressions of creativity and contemporary design.

On the occasion of Milan Design Week 2024, RIVIERA the brand's creative hub curated by Simple Flair, located in the central 5Vie district, will host the first solo show in Milan by the South Korean industrial design studio KUO DUO.

The title 'WORD PLAY' focuses on an experimental design project that explores the limits of production and materials. Indeed, the creative process of Hwachan Lee and Yoomin Maeng starts with an emblematic 'play on words'. Unexpectedly associating terminology pertaining to various manufacturing techniques with different materials - what would happen, for example, if we wove thick plastic? And what if we literally burnt wood as if it were firewood? – the two designers found a new method - called 'WORD PLAY' - that enables them to explore the unlimited potential of building materials and experiment with new approaches to production.
This method serves as an impetus, encouraging them to pursue new ideas and explorations with unforeseen outcomes: if the initial results of these experiments take shape as unique works exhibited or sold in galleries, the underlying design evolves into mass production projects, triggering the development of large-scale industrial processes. This gives rise to various types of products - from mass-produced furnishing elements to small meaningful objects.
The 'WORD PLAY: OBJECTS' exhibition, the first solo show in Milan by KUO DUO, hosted at RIVIERA during Milan Design Week, is showcasing a selection of works grouped together under the category 'objects', reflecting the research into design by the Seul-based studio in recent years, as well as some new works presented exclusively on this special occasion.

The names of the objects – including the Weave Plastic basket, the Fire Wood vase, and the Cast Aluminuim lectern, just to name a few – intuitively reveal the concepts and ideas behind their creation. The combination of different materials and production techniques gives shape, through objects, to the exploratory work carried out by KUO DUO. Each object was developed and produced in collaboration with local producers and craftsmen in South Korea.

To mark the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Italy and South Korea, the exhibition 'WORD PLAY: OBJECTS' also symbolises the stimulating creative and communicative exchange between the two countries.... read the rest of the article»