With CIVICITY, Nieuwe Instituut and cheFare rethink design weeks at Milan Design Week 2025With CIVICITY, Nieuwe Instituut and cheFare rethink design weeks at Milan Design Week 2025

• Nieuwe Instituut presents CIVICITY at Milan Design Week 2025, in partnership with cheFare and the Embassy and Consulate-General of the Netherlands in Italy.

• CIVICITY is the first edition of Redesigning Design Weeks, a multi-year inviting designers to rethink design events’ impact – social, environmental and cultural – on host cities.

• Curated by Collective Works, this edition welcomes the first two designers-in-residence, Pete Fung and Studio-Method, who will explore making design weeks more sustainable with Milan’s partner communities.

• Journalist Nuria Ribas Costa will document the project, offering critical reflections and future scenarios.

• On 9 April, during Milan Design Week (7-13 April), the Nieuwe Instituut and local partner cheFare will launch the programme at Alcova, sharing its goals and residents’ early insights.

Design weeks around the world have become key events where designers, companies and visitors can meet and exchange ideas, expertise and ambitions. But with such events increasingly contributing to local pollution, rising living costs, housing crises, social inequality and over-tourism, the current design-week model is unsustainable.

In partnership with the Embassy and Consulate-General of the Netherlands in Italy and Milan-based chefare, the Nieuwe Instituut is launching Redesigning Design Weeks, a multi-year residency programme inviting Netherlands-based designers to critically examine the sustainability challenges of design weeks and to rethink existing practices. Using Milan Design Week as a case study, the initiative builds on other Nieuwe Instituut projects, such as the New Store and Redesigning the Designer, that aim to challenge existing structures and test alternatives in the real world.

For CIVICITY, the first in the series of Redesigning Design Weeks residencies, designers Pete Fung and Studio-Method (Riel Bessai and Pedro Daniel Pantaleone), have been invited to immerse themselves in Milan’s urban, social, environmental and cultural ecosystems over the course of two months. Rooted in the Latin civis, meaning citizen, CIVICITY emphasises the connections between people, place, and participation.

Beginning their residencies in March, they will develop site-specific design strategies that critique, reimagine, or address the impact of Milan Design Week on pressing urban issues. The designers will work from two locations in Milan: Terzo Paesaggio and Magnete, each with its own profile and distinct challenges. Fung will be based at Terzo Paesaggio, a cultural organisation in Milan’s Chiaravalle district, while Studio-Method will work with Magnete, a cultural centre and community hub in Milan’s Adriano district.

When this first residency period comes to an end in early 2026, Redesigning Design Weeks will launch another cycle of residencies to further build on the earlier findings.

In addition to the residencies of Fung and Studio-Method, Rotterdam-based journalist Nuria Ribas Costa will document and reflect on the CIVICITY project as it unfolds. Her observations of the city before, during and after the design week will serve as both an output of the project and an analysis to inform the broader international field. Together with the findings of Collective Works, cheFare and the designers, Ribas Costa’s ‘portraits’ will explore existing sensibilities and narratives about Milan and its design week, as well as presenting future scenarios.

“As a frequent participant in design weeks, biennales and other international events, we at the Nieuwe Instituut want to look at the impact we’re having on the cities and communities that host us, while encouraging other participants to join us in exploring how we can create more sustainable relationships with each other.”
– Aric Chen, General and Artistic Director, Nieuwe Instituut

“European cities are in danger, at the crossroads among the housing crisis, financial speculation, pollution and global warming. Milan is at the forefront of the interrelated crises because of its historical role in the global event economies, today more unequal and unsustainable than ever. We need to rethink mechanisms, values and logics of such events and to do so, we need help from neighborhood communities, local actors, city universities and international designers and researchers.”
– Bertram Niessen, President and Scientific Director, cheFare

“Too often, design events create temporary spectacles that fade without lasting impact. CIVICITY explores how deeper engagement between designers and local communities might lead to more inclusive, sustainable, and socially connected urban futures. Even small interventions, when placed in the right context, have the potential to spark lasting change.”
– Curators Peter Zuiderwijk and Karin Mientjes, Collective Works

"Urban transformations require us to rethink sustainability, incorporating social aspects. Design must take into account the challenges of its environment. We are therefore delighted to support Dutch designers in their dialogue with Milan about shared challenges."
– Willem van Ee, Ambassador to The Netherlands in Italy

Nieuwe Instituut and cheFare will launch the programme at Alcova, at Villa Bagatti Valsecchi in Milan, on 9 April during Milan Design Week 2025 (7–13 April), as part of a programme that is organised by Design Academy Eindhoven. Designers-in-residence Pete Fung and Studio-Method will present the initial findings of their ongoing residency. The free event will also bring together local partners, experts and international guests for a discussion moderated by Angela Rui.

The final presentation of the work of Pete Fung and Studio-Method will take place one year later, during Milan Design Week 2026, together with the first findings of the designers-in-residence who will succeed them at the beginning of that year.

For more information, please contact: Robin van Essel | Press Officer | r.vanessel@nieuweinstituut.nl

Pete Fung is a researcher, teacher and social designer who works with local communities, focusing on social contexts that help citizens realise how impactful small, everyday actions can be. Experimenting with different outputs, Pete Fung layers these experiences into a critical and reflective design.

Studio-Method is a research-based architecture and design practice, founded by Riel Bessai and Pedro Daniel Pantalone, that aims to create sustainable environments in response to urgent environmental crises. With a working methodology of ‘contingent design’ (that challenges existing systems of power) and a hands-on mentality, Studio-Method’s work fits the profile of the CIVICITY project.

Nuria Ribas Costa is a journalist and lawyer based between Rotterdam and Ibiza, where she is originally from. Formerly a member of the public relations team at OMA, she now works as an independent researcher and policy analyst in urbanism and culture. Nuria manages the communications of the urbanism agency Humankind and works closely with the applied research team Vigla and the Center for Music Ecosystems. She is also an editor at De Dépendance and writes for independent magazines. She is a member and co-programmer of the listening space KODA (Schiedam) and a broadcaster on Operator Radio.

Collective Works is a collaborative design studio based in The Hague, the Netherlands, founded by designers Karin Mientjes and Peter Zuiderwijk. The studio’s practice focuses on engaging with communities and environments to address socio-spatial questions through collaborative projects. Its work takes various forms, including activist campaigns, spatial support structures, participatory design and institutional programming. It is also part of the transdisciplinary design-build network Constructlab, which focuses on innovative and socially engaged projects across Europe.

chefareis a cultural transformation agency founded in 2012. Its first project was the cheFare prize, the first italian grant for cultural-based social innovation practices. In its three editions (2012-2015), the prize collected 1,800 proposals from all over Italy, awarding a total of €350,000 to five winners. Currently, cheFare works to map, connect and support cultural innovative experiences in Italy and abroad. cheFare works nationally and internationally with public and private actors, policymakers, researchers, cultural institutions and grassroot organisations. It makes collaborative processes possible, producing live gatherings of practitioners in the social and cultural fields and editorially curating the national debate on culture, innovation and policies. The agency’s ongoing activity bridges different audiences on complex issues, developing strategic tools for the public administration and cultural organisations.

Founded in 1961 and held every April, Milan Design Week is a major international design and furniture event. It consists of the Salone del Mobile, the furniture fair at Rho Fiera, and the Fuorisalone, a series of exhibitions, installations and events spread throughout Milan’s design districts.