from talks to films, here is the full ROOM FOR DREAMS program at milan design week 2026

room for dreams unveils live talkS and cinema program

As we are fast approaching Milan Design Week 2026, designboom unveils the full program of live talks, films and daily rituals that will take place throughout the week at ROOM FOR DREAMS. Alongside the immersive installations that will be on view at ME Milan Il Duca, conversations, social encounters and the cinema space all contribute to the multilayered exploration of dreams as design tools for cultural and social transformation. The result is not a static showcase, but a temporal ecosystem of ideas that evolves over the course of the week, inviting visitors to move between reflection, immersion, and speculation.

As part of the social programming, we are kicking off the week with Philippe Starck on Monday, April 20th, followed by talks with DRIFT, Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, Carlo Ratti and Stefano Boeri among many others throughout the week. In the Paf atelier-designed Cinema of Dreams, we are partnering with Louisiana Channel, the world’s largest archive of contemporary art, as well as movie studios and directors including 9sekunden and Bêka and Lemoine, to weave together ideas that dare to dream, stories that shift perspectives and creatives whose projects champion curiosity, playfulness and innovation.

Talk sessions and film screenings are free to attend on a first come, first serve basis, so and make sure to reserve your spot by RSVP’ing here!

Paf atelier’s Cinema of Dreams

EXPLORE THE FULL TALKS PROGRAM DURING MILAN DESIGN WEEK 2026

MONDAY, April 20 at 15:00

Utopia as Method: When the Conscious Mind Dares to Dream

Philippe Starck (STARCK), Sofia Lekka Angelopoulou (designboom)

We are kicking off the week with a conversation between iconic French designer Philippe Starck and designboom Editor-in-Chief Sofia Lekka Angelopoulou around dreaming as an intentional design strategy. Throughout history, utopian thinking has functioned as a deliberate intellectual tool, a way to test new social structures, aesthetic values, and spatial relationships before they enter reality. This opening talk examines dreaming as an act of conscious construction: a discipline of imagining alternatives, not to flee the present, but to reshape it.

Philippe Starck | image by James Bort

MONDAY, April 20 at 16:00

Temporary Dreamscapes: Immersive Realities as Prototypes for Alternate Futures

Samir Bantal (AMO/OMA), David Mahyari (SolidNature), Christopher Dessus (Paf atelier), Paul Kelly (La Marzocco), Sofia Lekka Angelopoulou (designboom)

During Milan Design Week, entire worlds are constructed, only to disappear days later. What if these temporary environments are not just exhibitions, but rehearsals? With contributors including Samir Bantal, architect and director of AMO/OMA, David Mahyari, founder of SolidNature, Christopher Dessus, architect and founder of Paf atelier, and Paul Kelly, Global Marketing Director at La Marzocco, this conversation reframes design events as experimental theaters, spaces where emotional, symbolic, and sensory futures are tested before they solidify into permanence.

SolidNature’s David Mahyari (left) and Samir Bantal of AMO/OMA (right) | image courtesy of SolidNature

Christopher Dessus, Paf atelier

TUESDAY, April 21 at 15:00

Design Intuition: When Creativity Emerges from the Subconscious

Benoît Mintiens (Ressence), Giovanni Moro (UNIMATIC), Sofia Lekka Angelopoulou (designboom)

If utopia belongs to the conscious mind, intuition belongs to the submerged one. Many of design’s most enduring gestures originate not in rational planning but in instinct, memory, and subconscious association.

This discussion with Benoît Mintiens, industrial designer and founder of Ressence, and Giovanni Moro, industrial designer and co-founder of UNIMATIC, explores how designers access intuition, how form, time, and object-making can emerge from emotional and psychological depths rather than pure function.

Ressence’s Benoît Mintiens

Giovanni Moro (UNIMATIC)

WEDNESDAY, April 22 at 15:00

Emotional Carriers: What Do Non-Human Entities Dream About?

Lonneke Gordijn (DRIFT), Claire Brodka (designboom)

If we decenter the human, what becomes of design? Can materials, infrastructures, machines, and ecosystems possess their own trajectories, behaviors, or forms of ‘desire’? This conversation with Lonneke Gordijn, Dutch artist and co-founder of DRIFT, examines objects and environments as active participants, dream machines that carry emotional, ecological, and political agency.

DRIFT’s Lonneke Gordijn | image by Teska Overbeeke

THURSDAY, April 23 at 15:00

Dream Projections: Designing the Future Before It Arrives

Carlo Ratti (Carlo Ratti Associati), Stefano Boeri (Stefano Boeri Architetti), Ma Yansong (MAD), Claire Brodka (designboom)

Dreams often operate as projections, rehearsals of possible worlds. Cities, technologies, ecologies: all begin as imagined constructs before materializing. This discussion brings together major voices including Carlo Ratti, architect, engineer and MIT professor; Stefano Boeri, architect and urban planner; and Ma Yansong, principal architect and founder of MAD, and Guest Editor of Domus 2026. Whether through responsive cities or vertical forests, the panel underscores projection as predictive tool, exploring how imagination anticipates and shapes urban and planetary futures.

Carlo Ratti | image by Andrea Avezzu, courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

Stefano Boeri | image by Giovanni Gastel

THURSDAY, April 23 at 16:00

Digital Dreams: Finding Beauty through the Lens

Simon Liu (OPPO), Claire Brodka (designboom)

Closing the talk series, Digital Dreams: Finding Beauty through the Lens turns to optics itself. With Jie Junren of OPPO, the conversation explores how imaging technologies mediate perception and redefine beauty. In an era where reality is increasingly filtered, captured, and augmented, the act of seeing becomes inseparable from the act of designing.

Simon Liu | image by Adrian Branco

cinema of dreams: louisiana channel, Bêka & lemoine, and more

Running throughout the week, from 12:00 to 20:00, the Cinema of Dreams, designed by Paf atelier, deepens the narrative through a carefully curated sequence of full-length movies, short films and video interviews. Each day kicks off with an inspiring compilation of ‘Advice for the Young’ from some of the world’s leading artists, architects, photographers, and writers, screened in partnership with the Louisiana Channel, the video production platform of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, bringing contemporary culture to a global audience. The daily program then unfolds with cult architectural portraits such as Koolhaas Houselife by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine, iconic project explorations by 9sekunden, Beatrice Minger & Christoph Schaub’s full length documentary, E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the house By The Sea, as well as an Earth Day Special on Wednesday, April 22, with Marco Barotti’s Coral Sonic Resilience, Louisiana Channel’s One with the Earth’s Cycle interview with Hiroshi Sambuichi and many more.

still from Louisiana Channel’s Mariko Mori: Between the Ancient Gods and the Future

Ressence will be presenting Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister, while two film premieres will also be unveiled at the Cinema of Dreams: The Talented Mr. Robi by Carlo Ratti Associati and Makr Shakr on Thursday, April 23, at 16:00; and Seeing Further by OPPO and designboom, a short film captured entirely on its latest flagship device, Find X9 Ultra, during the week and premiering on Friday, April 24, at 12:00.