I was born in Milan, northern Italy and have been an Interior Designer for over thirty years. In my projects, I work to shape a balance between functionality and a vocation for scenography. I create spaces and objects with a soul, to provoke a suggestion, to enchant and surprise. An evocation that is capable of exuberantly transcending mere function. It is an exercise in balance. The requests presented by the situation I am called to design and by clients I meet ask for original solutions, interacting with a language that sediments images, memories, patinas, textures and colours. My operational and image archive was formed thanks to an experience of the 30 years of work-life lived between Europe and Kenya, East Africa. I have lived in contexts that have stimulated a process of discovery and adaptation, between euphoria and method. The tendency to style rigorously was learned in my academic studies in Milan and then in the first years of working in publishing and advertising environments, I gradually de-programmed and regenerated thanks to the encounter with more spontaneous and ancestral techniques linked to the communication of stories.
I experienced how to combine, shape, fragment, to aggregate and bind traditional and organic materials but also synthetic and industrial ones, to give voice to the plastic, chromatic and architectural expression as well as to the primary function. By integrating discipline with exuberance. Eliminating prejudices to explore the infinite possibilities offered by local manual skills guided and activated by my thoughts. I have experienced the design of unique pieces of furniture in, as well as private, also public environments. I prefer organic forms, the curves that interact, the light that flows and gradually pass in the shadows. The orthogonality of the plans is not the first option and that is why when it is established, it works expressively. When I enter a place to renovate I often visualize how it transforms and how it is, then I immediately start drawing the shape on paper, I begin to draw exactly as my grandfather did. I like to support this dialogue by also designing the objects that will become part of the space, from the great to the finer detail.
Thanks to the many experiences on projects with villas, apartments, boutique hotels, restaurants and shops, I have developed my own design language, which is always open to new and coherent declinations. I prefer to create essential spaces, where the human being feels the protagonist of authentic actions.
I have always drawn and I remember starting with a grandfather, a painter who experimented with different techniques, and with my father who loved technical drawing. After completing my studies in Interior Design and Architecture (Institute of Art Beato Angelico Milano, and ISAD Milano) at the end of the 1980s, in Milan, I collaborated with the Studio Architetti Associati on the architectural design of private homes and public spaces and the creation of sets for photographic services. I then continued as a freelance Stylist for many interior magazines and companies in the sector, until the day I decided to move to Kenya, where I stayed for the next 15 years.
In Kenya on its Indian Ocean coast, I renovated and took over a small Resort built exclusively in natural materials, palm interiors and seafront views from pure nature. An experience that accompanied me to conceive the second and true design activity, designing jewellery, lamps, furnishings. I, therefore, founded ‘BE CLEVER’. I built my workshop inside a palm plantation, close to the ocean, where local artisans made objects that I designed for my shop and my customers, with local materials. I gave shape to an entrepreneurial project with a team of artisans that I helped form. I experimented by collecting recycled materials and with this, I also created a social project giving work to dozens of families for about 15 years, well convinced that together with my profit it was right to contribute to the well-being of families who participated. In some cases it turned out to be a utopian desire but very often my creativity was added to theirs, multiplying well-being in a virtuous circle, an energy that I carry forward worldwide. There have been many projects carried out in Kenya, with enthusiastic clients still who follow me and I support them in all lands.
Now I’m based in Europe, working between Ibiza and Milan. Every project in distant places, or local always appears as a new experience not to be missed.
In recent years I have dedicated myself to interesting renovation work in the south of France, where part of a small medieval village has been transformed into a hotel diffuso. A special experience based on the production of wines and the correspondence between container and content.
My journey continues between renovations of private villas, agritourism, apartments, furniture design and attention to the style of a large shop with workshop in Ibiza.