100% CALPESTABILE: over 100 floors
on display in Bologna developed exclusively for SAIEDUE LIVING

A warp on which to weave the fabric of finishing and furnishings, flooring is the element that first sets the style of a living space. The Exhibition 100% Calpestabile at SAIEDUE LIVING 2004, in exhibition hall 35 of the Bologna Trade Fair Centre, gathers the results of months of research to present over one hundred intriguing interpretations of the topic floorings, arising from the dialogic tension between rediscovered nature and the latest frontiers of technology.

A blend of materials and techniques produce never-before-seen shapes and products, leading to suggestions, ideas, and overlapping concepts to meet any decorative and performance demand. The collaboration of MAPEI in creating this event emphasises the exhibition's vocation for becoming a practical and useful tool for proposing new ideas within the reach of planners and engineers, designers and businesses.

To host the over one hundred floorings on exhibit, each covering an area of 9 square metres, SAIEDUE LIVING has set aside 3,000 square metres of space at 100% Calpestabile.

Within the context of a fascinating path through the exhibition, across catwalks, bridges suspended over mysteriously appearing rivers, lakes of unusual materials, the visitor is deprived of natural light and immersed in the darkness of the space created by designers Roggero and Pozzi (Studio Original Designers 6R5, Milan), to observe and touch unexpected creations made with materials straight from nature: earth, wood, stones, natural fibres used not only in traditional ways, but shown to adapt to the new demands of technology and new uses. Elsewhere, visitors will be surprised by the functional efficiency of ultratechnological flooring used to solve everyday problems: hiding old flooring, cables, telephone lines, heating pipes. And when they are no longer needed they can be replaced by another system or by a traditional floor.
100% Calpestabile reviews materials and design solutions following the parallel tracks of NATURE and TECHNOLOGY - the two basic forces behind today's world and its lifestyles - following man's fleeting passage on a single day from the hectic work environments of the city and office, centred around efficiency and technology, dominated by materials such as resins - agglomerates – laminates – steel - glass, to his return to the welcoming home environment where even the materials - terracotta – parquet – mosaics – marble - natural stones - bamboo – cork - evoke rest and pleasure.

For NATURE: on display are floors in raw slabs of wood of American hardwood, flooring of inlaid coloured wood, handmade terracotta and the ancient craft of making individual briquets illustrated during the exhibition by specialised craftsmen, wood processed in variations such as marbleised, bleached, metallic or barrelled, antiqued by hand or laser, raw earth used by avant-garde architects for new bio-architecture solutions, extremely rare fossil marble from Madagascar, massage mosaics for spas; a space fully dedicated to past origins offers an ancient Greek floor, with a model of the layering first used by the Greeks according to the tenets of modern bio-architecture.

For TECHNOLOGY: use of fibre optics together with marble, resin, steel; transparent resins for flooring with inclusions of materials of various types and origins (pebbles, rocks, fruit, shells, plastics, etc.); lighted safety floor that lights in the dark; laminates with digital printing; liquid flooring made by adding a special kind of gel to resilient materials; technological resin-based flooring, titanium flooring for new design inspiration, steel mesh flooring.
100% Calpestabile is an exhibition that explores the infinite combinations of materials and processes, without neglecting an area dedicated to contemporary art and signature design by some of the most prestigious international names. The exhibition includes the suggestions and visions of Enrica Borghi, Ottmar Kiefer, Alessandro Mendini, Nicola Bolla, co-ordinated by Laura Villani. Also on display are the floors conceived by journalists Gilda Boiardi, Editor-in-Chief of INTERNI, and Marina Carrara, Editor-in-Chief of CASAVIVA.

In partnership with: