AKC? is a temporary travelling installation exhibited in Milan during the Salone del Mobile 2009 for Tecno, a leader company in office furniture. Following its interest in research for balance between design, art, technique and emotionality, Tecno has contributed, to create a unique installation in harmony with the brand’s evolution in occasion of the presentation of an innovative operative office system.

“ACK?” – is a signal used in computing to indicate acknowledgement of receipt of a packet, it is also a common exclamation of surprise but it especially is the title of the installation that represents the vision of the Milanese practice Pierandrei Associati for which the human space is no longer characterized by a rational juxtaposition of components but by a logic of an evolutionary growth which allows organic and opened schemes that are customizable in unique configurations.


The project is intended a san allegory of the space in which man, nature and technology meet in harmony; inside a circumscribed space more than one thousand bamboo and metal tubes made of various sections and length hung from the ceiling and form a series of hollow spaces - a sort of caverns – where people can move and get lost. When visitors enter the place all bamboo swing and create a unique and unrepeatable sequence of sounds inside a fluctuating space where the floor only, made of natural grass, refers to a physical and ancestral contact with the earth.


The final result is an interactive labyrinth where nature melts with technology through the incessant interaction of materials and light effect. It is a responsive environment where the presence of man generates dynamic sensorial perceptions and stimulates a moment of connection and sharing of experience amongst visitors.


Two main internal caves – the first one completely made of bamboo’s stalactites and the one adjacent made of metal – represent with abstraction and irony the infinite possibilities to create flexible spaces, opened for meeting and not “just efficient”: the spatial effect is reinforced by an interactive artificial light system that controls movements of visitors and increase all dynamic effect of lights and shadows in the space.

Inside the cave few markers hang from the ceiling in order to allow everyone to leave his own message on the cane: the human desire to leave a personal trace, that it is usually forbidden or hidden, here became possible. The result is a space made of a playful and physical interaction made of people, natural materials and artificial products: it is a Glockenspiel built in an urban scale that sounds when people is passing by and that reveals unexpected shapes, colours, sound and perfumes but nevertheless familiar.

© PIERANDREI ASSOCIATI – 2009
watch the video of ACK

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project: Pierandrei Associati, Alessandro M. Pierandrei, Fabrizio M. Pierandrei, Stefano Anfossi
collaborators: Elio Di Carlo, Vincenzo Rinaldi, Sonia Bianchi , Milena Oregioni

ACK- The emotional labyrinth of Pierandrei Associati

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