Handling Architecture
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Handling Architecture

Design handles

By Editorial Staff -
Dnd has participated in the project

Val Sabbia in the northern Italian province of Brescia has long been a bastion of smithery and metalworking, making it the ideal home for Dnd, a domestic and international leader in the design and manufacture of top quality handles. The firm can trace its origins to 1968, when Angelo Martinelli founded Fmn Martinelli, a successful family business that has grown by leveraging local artisan traditions, industrial techniques and innovation, in an amalgam of technology and design. The company emphasizes the involvement of architects and designers in the creation of its products, with “Architecture for the hands” a prime recent example of this. The brainchild of the firm’s artistic director Giulio Iacchetti, this project involved asking five established architectural practices used to designing major buildings and sweeping urban plans to conceive a far smaller element. Stefano Boeri Architetti, Alfonso Femia, Maurizio Varratta, Cino Zucchi and 967arch were approached to tackle this complex challenge that merges technique, design and architecture. They each designed a door handle to embody their style and philosophy in an everyday object. Stefano Boeri Architetti produced DUE, a handle based on simple shapes. Two slender parallelepipeds - one for the plate and one for the actual handle - created a sculpted, essential effect. (IN)finito, by Alfonso Femia, introduces a new dynamic into the connection between a door and a handle, adding movement and continuity with a plate extending to the very edge of the door. Maurizio Varratta came up with Levante, a balanced handle with soft, slender lines that are as beautiful to look at as to touch. Drop by Cino Zucchi takes the soft, curved lines of a “drop” to open up new worlds. Finally, 967arch designed Blend, a refined archetype of two solids, a cylinder and a rectangle in a play of curved and broken lines.

 

 

Dnd
Loc. Piani di Mura, 2 - I - 25070 Casto (BS)
Tel. +39 0365 899113
E-mail: [email protected] - www.dndhandles.it


© Maggioli SpA • THE PLAN • Via del Pratello 8 • 40122 Bologna, Italy • T +39 051 227634 • P. IVA 02066400405 • ISSN 2499-6602 • E-ISSN 2385-2054