Four days of installations, cinema, and talks at BAM for the fifth edition of Open Air Design
From 18 to 21 September 2025, Open Air Design returns to the regenerated spaces of the Biblioteca degli Alberi in Milan (BAM). An open-air, free event open to all, transforming the park in the heart of Porta Nuova into a large urban set where design meets nature, architecture, and art.
Now in its fifth edition, the event, curated by COIMA Image and MoscaPartners, with the film curatorship of Muse Factory of Projects, presents a cultural programme featuring installations, talks, screenings, and workshops, designed to engage a diverse audience, from design professionals to curious citizens.
The theme of the 2025 edition is Frames of Nature: a reflection on the relationship between humans and the landscape, inspired by the visionary language of cinema. Like design, cinema creates worlds and imaginaries, suggests alternatives, and shapes new horizons. In this case, it does so through a series of auteur documentaries screened among the installations and within the spaces of the Fondazione Riccardo Catella, accompanied by talks and dialogues with directors, designers, and companies.
Five years after its debut, Open Air Design reaffirms its identity as an accessible event, promoting design as a tool for social and environmental transformation.
This edition will feature 13 participating companies, including Artemide, Gessi, Kartell, Poliform, and Antonio Marras + Nodo Italia, presenting their design visions through installations that dialogue with both the landscape and the city.
Alongside the installations, the programme includes a packed schedule of public talks, cultural aperitifs, open-air screenings, and AI storytelling workshops curated by the Civica Scuola di Cinema Luchino Visconti, as well as closing performances curated by the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado. Universities will also play a key role, with the Politecnico di Milano taking centre stage through talks and student presentations.
Audiences will be able to watch documentaries such as Architecton by Victor Kossakovsky, E1027 by Beatrice Minger and Christoph Schaub, and We The Others by Maria Cristina Didero and Francesca Molteni, discovering stories that intertwine design, nature, architecture, and future visions.
Open Air Design is an invitation to experience design outside conventional venues, to discover how architecture and creativity can transform public space into a collective experience.
Discover the full programme here
