After two days at the Fiera we’ve filled almost four bags with CDs and catalogues on furniture and lighting.

The sensory overload of all the stands – spread across 20 or so halls – is overwhelming, and I’m looking forward to a day spent at Zona Tortona and Ventura Lambrate, where we can take stock… while also absorbing more exhibitions, installations and additional work from designers who aren’t showing at the fair grounds.

So far this week, we’ve had the opportunity to meet quite a few well-known designers, and it’s been a really rewarding experience to speak with them.

Patricia Urquiola held a press conference to launch her ‘Nub’ chairs with Andreu World – a few images from this are below.

Patricia works with so many big names, and so I managed to squeeze in a question, asking her what made working with Andreu World really unique for her.

Her answer to this was:

“I have a house in Spain, on Ibiza. When I come home in the summer time, I came to visit Andreu.

“They are Spanish… it’s easy for me to be in Italia, but to be in Spanish – it’s definitely easier.

“We speak absolutely the same language. It makes the dialogue with the company even easier.”

You can read the full interview with Patricia on Indesignlive.com.

We also met Jasper Morrison, who has collaborated with Naoto Fukasawa on the Maruni ‘Hiroshima’ range.

I was interested to find out what this collaboration has brought to his practice and body of work, as there’s an element of East meets West to it.

Jasper came back with a really good story…

“Working with Maruni, it’s the discovery of a new level of quality, I’ve never worked with a company before that have that quality.

“When I visit a factory to check a prototype I have a trick; I take a tape measure to measure the chair, which gives me a bit of time to think before I tell the producer what I think.

“In the measuring, usually I find something wrong – “Oh, the distance between the legs is wrong, anyway it’s not so bad… perhaps we can change this or this…”

“I was measuring the prototype at the factory for Maruni and there was nothing wrong. I had nothing to say!”

You’ll be able to read the full interview with Jasper in the next day, on Indesignlive.com.

We also met with the charming Jaime Hayon who has released the ‘FAVN’ with Fritz Hansen.

My favourite excerpt from that conversation was Jaime’s comments on the evolution of Milan during- and post-recession.

“I’m really proud this year of what I’m launching at Milan,” he says.

“This Milan is very exciting. Everything that’s shown this year is quite well thought.

“Three years ago was when everyone realised that it needed to calm down.

“The world of design was getting a little bit nuts, and I was also part of that.

“Last year, you could already see there was a lot more intelligence in design.

“And now, you are starting to see people really concentrate.

“I’ve seen some very nice stuff.

“There’s more thinking going on; you start to see the results of thought.”

You can read the full interview on Indesignlive.com here.

The Artemide launch party was also a real highlight, offering up international talent such as Neil Poulton and Ross Lovegrove, who showed off their work for Artemide.

Here’s Neil Poulton with his seamlessly integrated wall light.

And Ross Lovegrove, with Emilia La Forgio of Artemide in Australia – both were very good about all the photos we wanted to take!

We also stopped by at Artek, for the launch of their new lighting range, ‘White’, by Artek Design Director, Ville Kokkonen.

Yes, here we are, deep in conversation, his lighting pieces hanging above and behind.

Much of the concept behind this lighting is about framing the white light, so that when you look at the lighting pieces, you cease to see the frame, and interact wholly with the ‘white’ – that is the light itself.

They are an interesting, slightly more industrial, addition to the Artek range. I’d really like to see them in situ, in perhaps a retail or residential environment.

Visit Habitusliving.com for additional Milan coverage. Including Habitus Loves, and the Rosita Missoni interview – pictured in Hero images.

Visit Indesignlive.com for more Milan coverage.