Tutte le vite del legno

Didactical Project - IED Roma - Undergraduate Course in Product Design

Academic year

2024/2025

How can furniture be designed to last over time, reduce waste, and give new life to materials? Second-year Product Design students at IED Roma explored this question with Tutte le vite del Legno, a project born from the collaboration with Riva, an Italian company specializing in solid wood craftsmanship, and Legambiente.

The initiative took the form of a design contest, challenging students to create wooden furniture pieces with a sustainable approach, combining aesthetics and functionality. The outcome is a collection of prototypes that offers multiple interpretations of the material, transformed into meaningful and functional objects, each addressing durability and reuse in an innovative way.

Seven design concepts explore the expressive potential of wood in dialogue with other materials, functions, and visual languages. From desks to decorative elements, storage solutions to diffusers, each project sheds light on a different aspect of the relationship between sustainability, design, and material memory.

The project gave students the opportunity to engage with the production processes of a company like Riva and the circular economy principles promoted by Legambiente. The design process included material research, technical experimentation, and prototype development.

Tutte le vite del Legno was showcased from April 8 to 13, 2025, during Milan Design Week, at the RivaViva showroom. The exhibition turned sustainable ideas into tangible objects, highlighting how design can serve as a tool to rethink the relationship between creativity, industry, and environmental responsibility.