“INNOVATION, EMOTIONS, ATMOSPHERES:
THE NEW DESIGN PATH”
By Gianpietro Sacchi and Giacomo Rizzi
Abstract of the speech given by architects and lecturers at the University Politecnico di Milano during the conference entitled “The evolution of entertainment. Industrial design, lighting and planning for the new night entertainment venues”, organised within the specialised trade fair SIB Atmosfair (www.sibatmosfair.it) at RiminiFiera.
The aesthetization of everyday life: design is protagonist at every hour of the day. And of the night.
Our society is undergoing an epoch-making evolution in which paradigms and trends change; we are living the time of sustainable innovation, aesthetization of everyday life, where design is present and transversal in every place and product; it is the time of technology and inclination towards it, of innovation and transgression.
All this has naturally and rapidly transformed also the ways nightlife is interpreted and consumed, especially by the young public, that without having completely repudiated the “old” ways to spend a night out, besides the traditional night club have started to frequent new entertainment venues where to find traces of a lost conviviality.
From status symbol to the expression of personality
As it is no more fashionable to wear a single brand, but different brands are used together to best represent the self, the same thing happens in the choice of a venue for a night out: no more the most fashionable place, but the one that best suits us.
Status symbol leaves place to the enhancement of each person’s personality and sensibility.
Night and daytime, from single fractions of the day become the field where to concentrate and invent more creative and innovative models, where to compare and share them.
The venues where people meet are the places where trends become fashions, to be shared by a continuously larger public, and where they undergo constant changes in order to adapt to and sometimes anticipate the expectations of a large number of consumers.
The new places of consumption, from nightclubs to new night entertainment venues
Locations and architectures change, and also the way they are designed, their furniture and fittings, the type of offer, their functionalities and consequently consumption.
Nightclubs have been a symbol-location for 20 years. In fact, for a long time the only offer was that of often huge spaces with the dance floor as core of the place, lights and music that covered everything and everybody, where the entrance ticket comprehended a drink and defined rigid and predictable ways of consumption, where the quality of the service was usually standard.
Milan, “capital” of design and the New Entertainment
Perhaps it is not accidental that it is in Milan, the capital of fashion, communication and design, that the phenomena of the huge nightclubs have completed their cycle. At the beginning, due to their crisis, many cinemas have been refurbished and transformed into huge nightclubs that could host thousands of people. Later on, more recently, in many cases many nightclubs have become Bingo halls or something else, or have shut down.
Therefore the nightclubbing phenomena is now reduced even though there is still a hard core of devoted public, which is segmented in terms of age.
Today in Milan almost every day new types of venue are born, venues more in tune with the taste and lifestyles of the public. It is complex to synthesize their traits and perhaps it is premature to define rigid categories for the new entertainment: the continuous research carried out by entrepreneurs and designers proposes very differentiated new architectures, styles, and typologies of offer.
Atmosphere, that is beauty, design, multi-functionality and multi-sensoriality
In most of the cases these venues are strongly characterised both aesthetically and functionally, and the offer of services and entertainment is very heterogeneous: not music only, not restoration only, not cocktails or beer only.
The offer is usually a careful and never random mix of these elements that contribute to the general offer of the venue, a measured combination that involves sight, taste and hearing in an involving multi-sensorial experience. Often different functions take place in different areas that are harmoniously and stylistically connected together. This combination of elements contributes to the creation of a situation of pleasure, comfort and involvement that can only be defined in one word, “atmosphere”.
In these new types of venue style and atmosphere are absolutely decisive. The taste for furniture, details and accessories has superseded the old high visual impact settings.
New motives for companies of the entire production line
The New Entertainment influences a highly potential market that attracts the interest of companies of many different sectors, that range from furniture to lighting, to video and sound technologies. The change involves the whole market because besides widening commercial opportunities, it pushes the companies of the entire production line involved in this sector towards innovation. Furthermore, it involves new realities, for example interior design that today can turn successfully to this sector that was once reserved only to specialised companies. The furnishing elements of the new venues - that is couches, armchairs, tables, lighting devices, complements, materials and finishings – have in fact often the purpose to make the public feel comfortable, as in a beautiful house, and designers and club owners choose consequently.
This trend leads also to a new way of conceiving the technical structures and the facilities destined to the public. In traditional nightclubs these spaces were only functional, but in the new entertainment venues they often become spaces with a strong identity characterised by design, in harmony with the atmosphere of the location.
From night... to daytime: Entertainment, the engine of innovation also for new daytime spaces
It is interesting to notice that also spaces destined to very different functions and fruitions, with a more “daytime”, practical and concrete nature, have also been influenced by this trend.
More and more often we see retail outlets of different kinds, multi-stores and fitness centres that are transformed in accordance with the direction indicated by the New Entertainment venues: they have music and interior bars and restaurants. The success of the new entertainment venues has a strong influence and represents also a new shared way of conceiving consumption, which is more and more lived as an involving experience of fun and entertainment.
It is the “new entertainment” and these venues and locations are today’s expression and also an anticipation of the rapid changes in the aesthetic sensibility, they are the places that host the new forms of socialisation that are reflected on the great leisure industry, changing its features.
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