Between Salone and Fuorisalone 2026, a look at the everyday workspace: what do the Milan Design Week trends leave us with about how we inhabit and design our hybrid spaces?
Every year, in April, Milan transforms into an open-air design laboratory.
The streets, courtyards and pavilions of the Salone del Mobile become the place where design stops being an object and becomes a conversation, spilling beyond the fairgrounds through the Milan Design Week.
The theme chosen for 2026, for the Fuorisalone in particular, is a clear statement. "Be the Project" is perhaps the most honest focus in years: an invitation to recognise oneself not in the finished result, but in the process of becoming - that in-between space where ideas first take shape.
A way of thinking about design that has a great deal in common with how we approach the world of work, and the spaces in which it unfolds.
Milan Design Week 2026: Design as a human process
The Salone del Mobile and this year's Fuorisalone / Milan Design Week revolve around one central idea: design is not an answer, it is an ongoing question.
The major exhibitions and events spread across the city explore the dialogue between matter and artificial intelligence, between craftsmanship and circularity, between industrial production and attention to detail.
At Eurocucina / FTK, the biennial exhibition running alongside the Salone, the conversation centres on increasingly connected kitchens: nteractive surfaces, integrated energy systems, environments designed to anticipate the needs of those who inhabit them.
At Salone Bagno, wellbeing becomes a bathroom design brief: water comfort, green materials, spaces conceived for regeneration.
And throughout the fair, the best of Italian craftsmanship is brought into dialogue with the principles of circular economy, thanks to Confartigianato. A presence that reminds us how Made in Italy is not simply about aesthetics, but about method, ethics and longevity.
The common thread is clear: flexible spaces, responsible materials, technology in service of people, not the other way around.
From MDW to the desk: 3 Trends that concern everyday workspaces
Flexibility, wellbeing and sustainability are not just buzzwords at this Milan Design Week and Salone.
They are the same needs that hybrid workers carry with them every day. What form do they take in practice? And what impact do they have on our workspaces?
Hybrid Flexibility: An adapting desk
One of the most recurring themes at Fuorisalone 2026 is modularity: environments that change function, surfaces that reconfigure, objects designed to accompany fluid lifestyles.
This is also the challenge faced by anyone who works in a nomadic or hybrid way - from the kitchen table to the dedicated desk, from the shared office to the room at home.
In this context, a set of desk accessories like the woven leather Giove set is not simply an aesthetic indulgence, but rather a reference point. It defines the visual and practical perimeter of the workstation, wherever it happens to be.
Place it down, with its distinctive texture and lightweight structure, and the space becomes an office. Put it away, and the kitchen goes back to being a kitchen. A modular logic, on a small scale: the same one that contemporary design applies at an architectural level.
Material wellbeing: a comfort you can actually feel
At Salone Bagno, the conversation is about water wellbeing, materials, and environments designed to reduce stress.
Translated into the everyday workspace, this sensibility leads to a natural question: how much does the tactile quality of what we touch every day on our desk actually matter?
The bonded leather used in many Eglooh accessories answers that question directly. It is not simply an aesthetic choice. The soft, non-slip surface, the calibrated weight, the stability of the desk pad through hours of typing: these are all elements that have a real impact on the comfort of the workstation.
A quiet form of wellbeing: one you cannot see, but you can surely feel.
Circular sustainability: Making the most of what’s already available
The Confartigianato pavilion at Salone 2026 celebrates circular economy within Italian craftsmanship. Regenerated materials, short supply chains, zero waste as a production philosophy.
And once again, the bonded leather used by Eglooh to make desk pads, accessories and organisers - such as the Calliope and Minerva designs - is part of exactly this same thinking. More than a compromise, it is a genuine design choice.
Taking material that has already had a life, working it with care, restoring it to shape and function for lasting use. Circularity, applied to the desk.
Your space, a project ready to be lived in
"Be the Project" is not a theme exclusive to architecture studios or Milan Design Week installations.
It is an implicit question that every hybrid worker asks themselves each morning, consciously or not: how do I organise this space so that it actually works? How do I make it my own, even when it is temporary?
Desk accessories, chosen with care, made to last, capable of adapting, are one of the most tangible answers to that question.
Live in an hybrid workspace through the unmistakable Eglooh design shapes!
