FAST-tracked to the centre of Milan

There’s a new kid on the block. More precisely, a new flagship store installed in Milan’s high-end furniture Valhalla, the Durini design district, just east of the city’s Duomo. Fast – makers of outdoor furniture since 1995 – opens just in time for the upcoming Milan Design Week on via Cesare Battisti, a few steps away from Via Durini, in this prime destination of architects and interior professionals in search of the finest furniture Italy has to offer.

When it comes to recognition among this elite set of makers, a door in the right part of town carries a lot of weight. For the professional frequenters of the Durini district, the choice of outdoor furnishings, a design typology more in demand than ever, just got bigger.

Finding a way to tell Fast’s nature-inspired story to potential clients in the urban heart of Milan fell to the architects Quincoces-Dragò & Partners. The site is in an early 20th century building and consists of two exhibition spaces and a material library where colour and texture can be explored.

The space on the ground floor serves as a place to display collections and there is one dedicated to professionals, architects and consultants for large projects at basement level. 'The project proposes the idea of a contemporary art gallery, a museum space and at the same time a meeting place,' explain the architects. 'Somewhere to display the different outdoor collections that characterise the design philosophy and technical-constructive skills of the company.'

Defining an interior that would set off the furniture’s outdoor credentials was a challenge the architects met by using light-coloured natural materials; the flooring is made of bleached oak wood while walls and ceilings are treated with a warming clay mix. The lighting design contributes to the illusion with warm temperature light sources and backlit walls.

With its roots in pre-alpine Valle Sabbia, the brand’s affinity with nature was set from the beginning. It started out composing outdoor furniture using locally produced aluminium, and while it has grown into its skin – adding weather-proofed stoneware, wood, fabric and rope to its palette of materials and working with globally respected designers Alberto Lievore and Robby Cantarutti & Partners – the design sensibilities of the wider world have evolved to meet Fast’s values of sustainability, timelessness, comfort and immersion in nature.

The brand’s recent launches underscore where they are getting things right. Seating line Ria Soft, designed by Lievore, incorporates the brand’s all-important and era-defining values of sustainability (the frame is aluminium which is endlessly recyclable), tactility and comfort (rounded contours, ultra soft cushions), and durability in the great outdoors (weather-proofed materials from frame to padding and removable covers).

Solaris, meanwhile, also the design of Lievore, is a seating system that uses extreme modularity to furnish contemporary homes and hospitality venues with the means to create outdoor rooms; sofa elements including a daybed, a square and a hexagonal module – with or without armrests and back rests – provide the building blocks of endless compositions that can define and redefine a living area in nature.

The Milanese flagship store is not the only signifier of Fast’s recent success. While the production facility is currently expanding by 4000 sqm, last year the company also inaugurated FastLab, a 1700 sqm space on Lake Garda, northern Italy, that combines an exhibition space with ‘a laboratory of ideas’; a meeting point for designers, architects and retailers where they can exchange ideas and experiment.

Accepting that not everyone will be able to immerse in Fast’s slow-living lifestyle by the lake, the Milanese flagship provides the ideal place to take a breather when making a design-fuelled dash about Milan, and plan your escape into nature.

© Architonic

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