Aldo Cibic, a “living classic” of Italian design, furnished a comfortable apartment of less than 40 square meters in the Shanghai residential complex NICE 2035 Living Line. The complex, located in the heart of Siping, a densely populated working-class district, is an innovative social project coordinated by Lu Yongqi, dean of the School of Design and Innovation at Tongji University in Shanghai, where Cibic has taught for many years.
The main idea of the project is that communities and their residents can be important sources of innovation in cities. The interaction of universities and communities can become catalysts for new experiences thanks to the talents, ideas, emotions, knowledge and skills of different people.
The NICE 2035 Living Line is part of a larger project that also includes Design Harvest, a platform for urban-rural innovation and entrepreneurship, and Fab Lab, a startup specializing in catering, entertainment, mobility, robotics and advanced manufacturing.
For NICE 2035, Cibic created a multifunctional social space that aims to build a bridge between different cultures and experiment with housing scenarios for future cities. Here you can teach yoga classes, adopt pets, hold talks, create handmade objects or sell second-hand items. Aldo Cibic said the attraction of new activities has already revitalized the area, which is largely home to older people.
The designer’s own apartment has an area of 34 square meters. meters is an example of a functional and bright space. The modest kitchen and bathroom are decorated with red Gobbetto decorative plaster, the walls in the living area are painted soft blue, with which the mustard yellow table contrasts. There is a reused wooden board on the floor.
The room is decorated with design icons of the 1960s: the Castiglioni brothers’ “smiling” stereo radio phonograph RR126 , the Radio.Cubo TS522 radio created by Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper for Brionvega. The interior also contains objects from Aldo Cibic himself, such as the Polly decanter and the Colony table, which he designed for Paola C.
