Born in 2020 in Milan, from the need to meet the contemporary housing needs, ​POSThome is the new urban residency project conceived by Claudia Campone and her ​THIRTYONE design studio. This year the apartment changes its form and takes on new clothes to intercept the current hospitality trends and a new approach to travel. Artemest has contributed to the project by selecting the finest Italian artisans to furnish and decorate the interiors. The result is a fluid space, created to encourage a progressive disconnection and bring the personal wellbeing back into focus, in a dialogue with ourselves and the others.

Colorful and stylish, the apartment reflects its deep visionary spirit: an authentic creative retreat, a place where you can be inspired by the suggestions of designers and artists who contributes to the realization of the project. Meet the designer Claudia Campone and visit the Milan apartment to discover a new housing model, born to be contemporary.

​Meet Claudia Campone

POSThome is a project started in 2020 that has continued to evolve over the past two years and today presents itself with a new image. What is the project’s mission and how have its objectives evolved over time?

The idea arose during the first lockdown, an extraordinary event in all its tragedy that, nevertheless, we wanted to transform into an opportunity for research and reflection on the concept of living. While working remotely on this project with my studio Thirtyone Design + Management and experimenting with various home-working solutions, we realized the potential that every living space must harness to give daily activities their appropriate space. From this emerged the idea of working according to colors and environments, revisiting the concept of the entrance as an inside/outside filter, placing a sink near the entrance door, and creating spaces to meditate, work, play sports, and even use our smartphones in a thoughtful way.

Synergy and collaboration have made it possible to create a singular project with a strong innovative component. What role have international design companies played in creating POSThome?

Synergy with our partners was a great opportunity for creative and operational stimulation. The mobilization of large companies and small artisans gave an air of authenticity to the space, mirroring the buying trend of our real stakeholders. In sharing the same vision of such an immersive space, our partners have made their best resources available right from the start, both in terms of product placement and in setting up the space like a real showroom.

Why did you choose to collaborate with Artemest and what do you find most appealing about the company and its artisans?

As I said earlier, variety together with Artemest’s research- and curiosity-oriented approach to scouting new craftsmen on the national territory are certainly the aspects that align with the POSThome project. The idea of space becoming an immersible, accessible, and usable showcase is certainly an opportunity to team up with Artemest’s online network of industrious artisans. Furthermore, Artemest’s visibility, particularly on the international level, is firmly in line with our presence in the Italian and European markets, where we are very active after opening our London office.

The project’s concept revolves around the philosophy of disconnection, all the while recognizing technology’s fundamental role in how spaces in homes are lived in. How do these two seemingly antithetical concepts interact within these spaces?

I strongly believe that technology must be assumed rather than become the focus of our projects: we live in a hyper-connected world and our lives are dominated by the use of various devices. The same applies to our homes: machines for living - as Le Corbusier would have called them - in which technology is called to perform all logistical and operational activities. For this reason, the natural and artificial lights are entirely automated as well as the access controls. On the other hand, we must reconsider the methods and usage time of these devices: to that end, this edition of POSThome offers a re-interpretation of the old telephone sideboard, an accessory that was introduced in our homes along with the first telephones (which, at the time, were wired/corded landlines). In a wireless landscape, we propose a spatial and functional constraint by limiting the number of charging ports and introducing a bench-chair for taking phone calls so that the rest of the house can be enjoyed unimpeded by these communication-interpersonal tasks.

The Via Teodosio apartment succeeds in containing all the amenities that satisfy basic housing needs in just a few square meters. Did the space’s reduced size represent more of a challenge or a design opportunity for you?

Challenges are always an incentive to do better, to take an extra step, as our Thirtyone Design + Management studio’s motto states: “Thirty, let's make thirty-one!”. The exiguous 50sqm actually turned out to be an opportunity to plan vertically, using platforms and raising the heights of the various functions: for example, for the workspace, we enhanced a preexisting small window in the old bathroom by turning it into a natural light source framed by the bookcase. Furthermore, learning from the Japanese “existenz minimum” masters helped us reconsider the idea of permeability and interconnection, often very rigid in the Western residential architectural tradition. Collaborating with the NABA students we hosted for a 48-hour workshop allowed us to test out how this compact space offers multiple niches and configurations wherein people could retreat to think, read, and create.

In your opinion, what are the future directions of hospitality and how can POSThome represent a starting point for identifying new housing trends?

The hospitality sector has been through a so-called reset, and there is no doubt that it will have to take into account new trends in business travel in the future. Most business trips have been replaced by video calls and online meetings as a result of the technological acceleration triggered by the pandemic. It can be assumed that people will travel less often and for a longer time; as such, the hospitality sector will have to invest a great deal in the “experience design”, that is, in the guest reception and all services associated with their stay. To this end, POSThome is working with its partners and visitors to offer the most personalized and human experiences possible: alternating installations that become the artists’ creative residence where they leave their mark, proposing a food experience rooted in the territory that enhances the local food and wine excellences, and creating spaces for sharing and debating with the various visitors and project collaborators.