The Meanwhile Club

The first room introduces the theoretical dimension of the project through a video installation presented at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, showcasing Park’s research on urban mining applied to the city of Milan. The focus is on two materials, clinker and glass, understood as latent resources embedded within the built environment, potentially recoverable and reintroduced into new life cycles. The space is organized around the Jeff benches, made from modular aluminum profiles sourced from previous exhibition setups, marking a shift from the scale of the city to that of the object.

The second area deepens this transition, bringing materials to the forefront. The Frankie seating elements engage with a wall composed of clinker and glass panels recovered from two Park construction sites, Mi.C and Palazzo Missori, also presented at the Biennale. Here, materials are not displayed as samples, but as active components within a system that demonstrates their potential for reactivation, establishing continuity between research and application.

The sequence culminates in the third room, where the research takes on an immersive dimension. The temporary club is shaped by a constellation of reconfigured elements, including the Suzanne lamp, the Giorgio DJ booth, and the Delia seating system, all produced from components reclaimed from previous installations. Here, architecture is activated through sound, becoming a dynamic environment where light, matter, and music converge to define a shared experience.

At the end of Design Week, these elements will enter a new phase of their lifecycle. The objects designed for The Meanwhile Club will be auctioned as part of an initiative developed with Fondazione Mercurio, with the auction conducted by Filippo Lotti of Art Defender. Proceeds will be entirely donated to support the educational programs of Associazione Mercurio, extending the principle of reuse beyond material cycles into a tangible social impact.

The entire system is conceived as a loop: each element is designed to be disassembled and reused, continuing its lifecycle beyond the duration of Design Week. In this sense, The Meanwhile Club does not end with the event, but operates as an open device, capable of connecting people, materials, and programs within an extended temporal framework. Le Cannibale’s musical curation activates the space through a series of site-specific DJ sets developed in dialogue with the architecture. The club becomes a permeable and evolving environment where listening, rhythm, and space converge.

The Meanwhile Club is a temporary configuration within an ongoing process: an environment for materials and people in transit, demonstrating how resourceful intelligence can inhabit interim time without ever being exhausted by it.