The Intimacy

Created as Studiopepe's 2026 Manifesto Project, The Intimacy marks a significant milestone for the Milan-based practice founded by Arianna Lelli Mami and Chiara Di Pinto in 2006. Known for their multidisciplinary approach spanning architecture, interiors, product design, exhibitions and creative direction, Studiopepe has built an international reputation through projects that combine formal precision with poetic storytelling, material experimentation and unexpected juxtapositions.

Rather than celebrating two decades of work through a retrospective, The Intimacy offers something far more personal: a reflection on the invisible forces that shape the creative process itself. It explores intimacy not as a private emotion, but as a state of listening, self-knowledge and quiet transformation, revealing the space between an initial impulse and the moment an idea becomes reality.

At the heart of the installation is the belief that creativity is not simply a matter of skill, productivity or finished objects. Instead, Studiopepe presents it as an intimate act, an ongoing dialogue with oneself that unfolds long before anything becomes visible. Here, creating is less about producing for an audience than about allowing ideas to emerge naturally. The body understands before the mind explains, intuition precedes intention, and the unconscious begins working long before the hand starts making. Rather than celebrating completed works, The Intimacy focuses on the often invisible process behind them, suggesting that the most meaningful transformation takes place within the person creating.

The installation unfolds throughout Studiopepe's historic apartment on Viale Abruzzi in Milan, where soaring stucco ceilings, original herringbone parquet floors and generous windows become part of the narrative. Instead of functioning as a conventional exhibition, the apartment is transformed into a sequence of interconnected rooms that guide visitors through a series of thresholds, between silence and voice, matter and gesture, hesitation and form.

Every space has been carefully furnished to express Studiopepe's distinctive design language while encouraging slowness, contemplation and discovery. Art, interior design, performance, photography, sound and scent exist in constant dialogue, dissolving the boundaries between disciplines and creating an immersive environment where atmosphere becomes as important as the objects themselves.

Throughout the apartment, visitors encounter works not as finished statements but as traces left behind by the creative journey. Andrea Ferrari's photographs, created in close collaboration with Studiopepe since the practice's earliest years, sit alongside Arianna Lelli Mami's ceramic works, site-specific furniture, artistic performances, sound compositions and scent installations. Longstanding collaborators and design brands contribute custom pieces that extend Studiopepe's vision rather than simply furnishing the space. Together, these layered interventions reveal the studio's enduring fascination with materiality, archetypal forms and the dialogue between opposites, demonstrating how interiors can become vessels for memory, emotion and imagination rather than purely functional environments.

Although unveiled during Milan Design Week 2026, The Intimacy was conceived as the beginning of a much longer story. Following the exhibition, the Viale Abruzzi apartment continues as Studiopepe's permanent Project Apartment, a year-round space dedicated to exhibitions, workshops, talks, cultural gatherings and creative exchange. As the first chapter of this new platform, The Intimacy encapsulates the philosophy that has defined Studiopepe over the past twenty years: a belief that design is not simply about shaping spaces or objects, but about creating meaningful experiences where architecture, art and everyday life merge into a single, evolving narrative.