The 11th edition of the Design Days will take place from 26 to 29 September 2019 in Geneva, with a strong focus on Swiss creativity, young design, fashion and digital design.

This year, Pro Helvetia supports seven swiss designers, selected among the participants to an open call, who will present their work during the event. Among them, design labels Shizuka Saito & a ­– project studio.

Shizuka Saito graduated from HEAD — Geneva in 2017, as an interior architect. She was recently nominated for the Design Schweiz Preis 2019-2020 in the category «Rado Star Prize Switzerland for young talent». Her work is around materiality, sustainability, in product design and scenography. Every project is made out of a particular material and design from its proper qualities, like this «Valet», which was presented during the Milan Design Week 2019 in two different colors than here. It is a perforated metal sheet, cut, fold and the assembled using threaded rods. The transparency, lightness and the structural quality of the sheet are put forward, demonstrating the different possibilities of the materials, giving to it the possibility to extend to infinity. The object becomes a space generator and fits on an almost scenographic scale.

a ­– project studio was created in Biel in 2018 by Laure Krayenbühl.  «YEAP», the work she presents at the Design Days in collaboration with its conceptor Aline Joye, is a social design project, between art, design and socioculture, a participative and ephemeral project destined to disappear at the end of the event. It showcases installations aimed at stimulating the «Young Eyes, anyone with a fresh and curious look» according to Krayenbühl. The «Pavilion», ephemeral and modular, is designed, built, discovered, dismantled and transformed according to the «YEAP» manual. Made of identifiable materials such as wood and textiles, it is reminiscent of the huts of our childhood. Its playful assembly system allows for assembly invites the visitors to interact with the work.