ROOM FOR DREAMS: a week of installations, cinema, and encounters at ME milan il duca

a sequence of dream states at ME Milan Il Duca

Milan Design Week 2026, designboom’s ROOM FOR DREAMS took over ME Milan Il Duca to construct a temporary yet fully immersive environment where installations, talks, rituals, and moving images converged. Conceived as a spatial and cultural ecosystem, the project staged a sequence of interconnected experiences that explore dreaming as an active tool for imagining and rehearsing alternative futures.

Across the Aldo Rossi-designed hotel, each space was reprogrammed with a distinct atmosphere while remaining part of a continuous narrative. Visitors moved between the open-air garden, the social intensity of the lobby, and the introspective depth of the basement, encountering different temporalities and modes of engagement. Bringing together a wide spectrum of voices, including Philippe Starck, Samir Bantal of OMA/AMO, Carlo Ratti, Stefano Boeri, Ma Yansong, and Paf atelier, alongside partners including SolidNature, Ressence, La Marzocco, OPPO, and INDX|GLOBAL, ROOM FOR DREAMS gathered multiple disciplines into alignment, with architecture, design, film, and conversation functioning as parallel systems that shaped the whole experience. 

images © designboom, photography by  Camilla Mansini with Giorgio Gagliano

room for dreams installations frame material and perception

Within this ecosystem, large-scale installations anchored the experience through distinct yet complementary approaches. In the garden of the hotel, OMA/AMO in collaboration with SolidNature presented Il Sonno Supermarket, transforming familiar retail typologies into a slowed-down landscape of stone objects. Shelving carved from onyx and marble displays everyday items, from bottles to packaged goods, all rendered in solid material. At first glance, the space looks like a fully functioning supermarket, yet its logic quickly shifts as recognition gives way to dissonance. Objects appear frozen in a moment of use, suspending gestures of consumption and redirecting attention toward texture, weight, and time. Movement through the aisles becomes more about observation, as the installation reframes value through permanence and geological duration.

Below ground, Paf atelier shapes the Cinema of Dreams as an immersive capsule where scenography and film dissolve into one another. Reflective fabric is stretched into soft, rhythmic drapes, pinned by circular nodes that pull the material into wave-like formations across walls and floor. Cushions scattered across the curved ground invite visitors to recline directly within the scenography, blurring distinctions between seating and projection. Entry unfolds gradually, as darkness delays orientation and the space reveals itself over time. Space becomes the medium through which images are experienced, shifting cinema from a screen-based format into a bodily, atmospheric condition. 

OMA/AMO in collaboration with SolidNature presents a tactile retail landscape

talks and encounters activate the social core

At ground level, the lobby functions as the social condenser of the project, hosting a week-long series of conversations that position dreaming as a deliberate design methodology. Contributors including Philippe Starck, Samir Bantal, Carlo Ratti, Stefano Boeri, and Ma Yansong framed imagination not as escapism but as a form of projection, a way to test spatial, social, and ecological possibilities before they materialize. These exchanges extend beyond formal talks, shaping an atmosphere of continuous encounter where visitors, designers, and contributors intersect throughout the day. 

Running daily, the Cinema of Dreams introduced a temporal layer, central to the project. Developed with partners including Louisiana Channel, 9sekunden, and filmmakers such as Bêka and Lemoine and Beatrice Minger with Christoph Schaub, the program weaved together interviews, documentaries, and experimental works. Each day featured a variety of screenings, from reflections by leading creative figures to architectural films and premieres produced in real time during the week. 

Extending the project into sound, Music for Dreams introduced a closing moment shaped by DJ Giovannella Rosa Calix, where the space shifted into a shared sonic environment. As the day’s talks and screenings came to an end, music reoriented the experience toward the body, transforming the final register of the project into one of collective presence and atmosphere.

monolithic shelving carved from veined stone organizes products into a material gradient

rituals, media, and collaboration expand the framework

Beyond installations and talks, the project included everyday experiences, presenting them in new ways. La Marzocco transformed coffee into a performative ritual through the Accademia del Caffè Espresso, while Ressence explored time as a fluid and perceptual condition. In parallel, OPPO collaborated with designboom to produce Seeing Further, a film captured during the week. Together with INDX|GLOBAL, these contributions extended the project beyond physical space, framing content as something continuously generated, shared, and evolving.

The realization of ROOM FOR DREAMS is grounded in a wide network of collaborators and partners, alongside supporting partners Pernod Ricard, Topologie, and Pedrali, and production partners Uppercat and Chedo Event Solutions. Partnering creatives such as OMA/AMO, Migrating Lines, Fritto FM, and Rosa Calix contribute to the layered identity of the project, while event producers Claudia Decaro and Giulia Geromel coordinate its execution.

This multiplicity of voices reinforces the central premise of the project: that dreaming is inherently collective, shaped through exchange, collaboration, and shared imagination.

Across its installations, conversations, and media, ROOM FOR DREAMS constructs conditions where ideas can be tested, experienced, and rethought in real time, suggesting that design today is not only to build, but to project, to rehearse, and to create spaces where alternative futures can begin to take form.

each object positioned as part of a curated material narrative

the entrance sequence leads visitors into ROOM FOR DREAMS

Ressence explores time as a fluid and perceptual condition

the lobby functions as the social condenser of the project

light and fabric compose a quiet, immersive viewing space

OPPO creates an experience with a luminous backdrop

the experience culminates in Music for Dreams

project info:

name: ROOM FOR DREAMS

location: ME Milan Il Duca, Piazza della Repubblica, 13, 20124 Milano MI

partners: SolidNature, Paf atelier, Ressence, La Marzocco, OPPO, INDX|GLOBAL

cinema partners: Louisiana Channel, 9sekunden, Beatrice Minger & Christoph Schaub, and more

supporting partners: Pernod Ricard, Topologie, Pedrali

production partners: Uppercat, Chedo Event Solutions

partnering creatives:  OMA/AMO, Migrating Lines, Fritto FM, Rosa Calix

event producers: Claudia Decaro, Giulia Geromel

photographers: Camilla Mansini | @camillamansini with Giorgio Gagliano | @giorgiogagliano

This article is part of designboom’s Dreams in Motion chapter, exploring what happens when we treat our dreams and reveries as an active, radical rehearsal for impending material realities. Explore more related stories here.

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