The collaboration between Talenti, the top Italian outdoor brand, and one of the most iconic Italian designers has convinced the jury of this prestigious design award – largely on the basis of the intangible value of shadow. MrX is the innovative and elegant shading system signed by Marco Acerbis for Talenti, an aesthetic and architectural solution that has won the ADI Permanent Design Observatory and now awarded him arguably the most prestigious design award in the world.
Established in 1945 with an idea by Giò Ponti, the Compasso d’Oro ADI is famous for focusing on the essence of a product, in its uniqueness as well as technical contribution, aesthetic and value within the context of Italian design.
MrX is an innovative, sophisticated and functional piece of furniture designed to shade outdoor space without clutter. Its function is somewhat hidden when closed, only to be gradually revealed through its compass opening that allows the extension of the tent for shade. Made of extruded aluminium and available in different colours, the structure is designed for any setting and is of course especially useful in a hot summer context. MrX also features a modular design.
According to the jury, MrX constitutes “a new type of architectural complement with variable conformation – portal, gazebo – for the comfort of outdoor living spaces, able to become a tidy element of space as well as an efficient functional response to the need for shade.”
Marco Acerbis explains his design: “I smile when I think back to the process through which MrX was born. It all started with my mistake, in the sense that I was designing a tent that somehow had to have an X in a certain position and then, not happy, basically turning the sketch that I was doing, I realised that it would work much better in another direction. From there, it was a succession of intuitions that led to what is the ultimate object that then won the Compasso d’Oro.”
Acerbis, the designer, continues :”Clearly, when talking about outdoor tents it seems that everything has already been written and everything has already been told, so the challenge is one of, as the British would say, pushing the boundaries – in unknown territory.
“The goal was simple: to create an object that was two-dimensional when closed to disappear, but three-dimensional when open to create an underlying space of great protection widely and easily usable… something really spacious, that is easy to furnish with a beautiful composition of outdoor sofas but that when closed is a portal. This portal, somehow disappears, because the curtain disappears and the two legs overlap.
“Similarly, the idea of having a tent that is extracted from a horizontal, like the boom of sailboats, is something that was already there – even here we can not say that we relied on incredible technologies that did not exist before. This is what makes MrX, for me, perhaps one of the most interesting projects that I have done, because there is nothing like being able to innovate the product using existing technologies, maybe uniting worlds [of sailing and outdoor furniture] that look but do not necessarily talk to each other.”
