Every year, the Salone del Mobile generates thousands of square meters of architecture designed to last just six days. When the fair closes, most of these structures are dismantled and disposed of an environmental and ethical cost that the industry still struggles to address openly.
QuadroDesign and Giacomo Moor have chosen a different path.
What does “permanent installation” mean?
The project stems from a simple question: what happens if a stand is designed from the very beginning to become something else?
Elena and Enrico Magistro of QuadroDesign commissioned Giacomo Moor to develop a modular construction system: a wooden grid connected by four-way aluminum joints, conceived not to be discarded, but to be transported. Each component was standardized into a single section to simplify disassembly, transport, and reassembly in different contexts.
Visitors to Pavilion 6 at the Salone del Mobile 2026 will see QuadroDesign’s exhibition stand. By August 2026, that same structure will become the first public bathroom in the Masala market, Zambia.
The mission in Masala: water and sanitation as a right
Masala is one of the largest markets in Ndola, in central Zambia. Here, thousands of people operate daily in precarious conditions—primarily women who, often with their children alongside them, work in the charcoal market with no access to water or sanitation.
This first public bathroom in Masala will include:
6–8 toilet units complete with showers
Changing rooms and baby-changing facilities dedicated to working mothers
An external water point with constant access for the community
The structure will be elevated to withstand flooding during the rainy season. To ensure maximum sustainability and resilience, a dedicated 4 m³ well will also be built.
The lighting, designed by technical partner Platek, will follow this transformation as well—evolving from exhibition accent lighting into a safety feature for the surrounding area.
Our role
We are responsible for the entire operational phase: transport logistics from the fair to Zambia, local coordination in Masala, construction of the well, supervision of the reassembly, and integration with the market community. This is not symbolic support it is concrete execution on a project with a defined completion date: the end of August 2026.
“We want to create a place where basic needs are no longer a barrier to the freedom to work,” says our CEO & Co-Founder, Matthieu Meneghini.
For us, this project embodies beauty not as aesthetics, but as a tangible expression of respect and care for the individual.
We will follow the project on the ground and return with a full update: numbers, images, and what didn’t go as planned.
Because that, too, is part of the process.
