Marcello Ziliani

About

Marcello Ziliani was born in Brescia in 1963 under the sign of Pisces. In 1988 he graduated in architecture at the Politecnico di Milano with Achille Castiglioni as his supervisor (and unmatched maestro). He mainly works on product design developing projects for the furnishing, accessories, lighting, bathroom, office and early childhood industries and setting up fittings, theatre sets, art directions and communications. He focuses particularly on sustainability, human-centered design and “lean producibility”. He is not fond absolutisms and unshakable certainties and he loves speaking in a low voice and listening above all. He believes that in every project is actually a wish, a hope to take off.  And he believes that despite all, sooner or later you will be able to glide, at least for a short while.

Like any of us, more or less, he has put aside the minimum indispensable number of prizes and awards, he has held conferences, workshops, he has served on juries and has taken part in exhibitions.  He was awarded with two Good Design Awards – 2017 and 2019 – by the Chicago Athenaeum, the Archiproducts Design Award ADA 2018 and 2021, the Iconic Award 2019 awarded by the German Design Council, two European Product Design Award 2019, the Red Dot Design Awards 2020, two German Design Award – 2020 and 2021 – and the Stylepark Selected Award 2021. He also got selected into the finals of the Mixology North 2022 and into the finals for Archiproducts Design Awards 2022 and won the German Design Award 2023 and the BIG SEE Product Design Award 2023. He also won the Archiproducts Design Awards 2023 and was selected for the ADI Design Index 2023 (Golden Compass Selection).

From 2011 to 2023 he was the lecturer for the product design workshop held on the third year of the industrial design degree course at the University of San Marino. Starting in 2023, he has been teaching materials and production techniques for sustainability within the “Green Product Designer – product design and sustainability” course at the ITS Academy Machina Lonati. He signed projects for Alf Dafrè, Allibert, BBB, Bertocci, Bossini, Calligaris, Casprini, Ciacci, Ciatti, Crassevig, Creative Cables, Domitalia, Donati, Ethimo, Flex, Flou, Flos, Frascio, Geuther, Inglesina, Infiniti, ISA, Krios, Krover, Lanzini, Magis, Mara, Modo e Modo, Norda, Olympia, OMP, Opinion Ciatti, Pali, Parri, Pedrali, Pinti Inox, Progetti, Rapsel, Roche Bobois, Scab Design, Schönhuber Franchi, Sintesi, Techimpex, Vanini, Views International, Visentin, Wever & Ducrè, Zago.