Milan Design Week 2026 placed renewed focus on the home’s most functional rooms, with kitchens, bathrooms and appliance-led spaces treated less as purely practical zones and more as settings for care as well as architectural expression.

Across bathroom collections, integrated kitchen systems and professional-grade appliances, the strongest launches showed how design can support daily life with greater subtlety, durability and atmosphere. From Laufen’s quiet approach to ageing in place to Fisher & Paykel’s material-led kitchen rituals, these releases reframed utility as something deeply spatial and considered.

Fisher & Paykel

Fisher & Paykel presented Nature — Ritual at EuroCucina 2026, an immersive expression of the brand’s life-centred design philosophy. Rooted in the landscapes and material sensibilities of Aotearoa New Zealand, the exhibition explored how daily routines can become rituals through atmosphere, technology and material connection.

At the centre of the presentation was the brand’s State of the Art Collection and the evolution of its Minimal Style, both conceived as refined, visually recessive systems for material-led spaces. Rather than foregrounding the appliance as an object, Fisher & Paykel focused on the way appliances disappear into architecture, supporting kitchens that feel calm and intuitive.

Materials played an important role. Tōtara and basalt were used to express a design language of contrast: warmth and weight, tactility and permanence. In doing so, Nature — Ritual positioned the kitchen as more than a place of function. It became a setting for care, social connection and the repeated gestures that shape domestic life.

Molteni&C and UniFor

Molteni&C presented a wide-ranging 2026 offering across kitchen, living and outdoor environments. Physis, the new kitchen designed by Creative Director Vincent Van Duysen, positioned the kitchen as an architectural centre of the home. Rounded edges, soft curves, transparent glass doors, open compartments and integrated lighting create a sense of openness and continuity, while the use of Hinoki veneer introduces warmth, humidity resistance and natural antibacterial properties.

ASKO

ASKO’s Professional range brings the brand’s Scandinavian restraint into commercial laundry, with appliances designed for endurance and repeated daily use. Built for environments ranging from hotels, restaurants and health clinics to salons, self-service laundries and marine settings, the collection positions the washing machine less as a back-of-house utility and more as a reliable, integrated co-worker.

The washing machine range is designed around professional performance, with models tested for up to 15,000 or 30,000 cycles and capacities spanning 7kg and 9kg. Features such as EasyControl TFT display, Active Drum, Quattro Construction and motor weight control support both usability and long-term operation, while external dosing capability allows detergent use to be adjusted according to load weight.

ASKO also places hygiene at the centre of the range. Its Steel Seal construction removes the traditional rubber bellows, reducing places where bacteria and mould can collect, while selected models include disinfection programs. In this context, the washing machine becomes a study in robust, precise and practical design — made for the kind of everyday labour that depends on consistency, durability and care.

antoniolupi

At Salone del Mobile Milano 2026, antoniolupi presented a series of new projects within an exhibition architecture inspired by the Roman domus. Organised as a sequence of rooms around a central space, the stand explored the bathroom as a domestic environment shaped by architecture, material and water.

Among the standout launches was Carsico, a freestanding marble basin designed by Paolo Ulian. Hand-carved by specialist artisans, the basin makes visible the core drill holes that are usually hidden within marble sinks. These technical voids become the defining aesthetic feature of the piece, producing a sculptural composition of solids, cavities, light and shadow. Rather than concealing the process of making, Carsico preserves its traces, allowing imperfections, marks and material variations to become part of the basin’s character.

Also presented was Skyline, a marble washbasin designed by Antonio Iraci. Inspired by urban architecture, Skyline is formed from staggered planes and intersecting surfaces, creating a basin that reads almost as a small architectural landscape. Its function is partially concealed from the front, with the object revealing itself through movement. The result is a washbasin that turns an everyday gesture into a spatial encounter with stone, reflection and water.

Further releases included Nazionale, a tapware line by Michele Vitaloni; Lilium, a basin by Brian Sironi inspired by the form of a flower; Slide, a marble bathtub by Carlo Colombo; and a capsule collection of porcelain stoneware surfaces by Carlo Colombo, Gumdesign, Giorgio Rava and Mario Trimarchi.

Laufen

For Laufen, Konstantin Grcic has designed PAR, a bathroom collection that translates the passage of time into form, material and use. Created for people in later life, PAR supports daily routines without overtly signalling limitation. It is designed around experienced users who value simplicity, comfort and autonomy, with solutions that are already present when needed rather than added later as afterthoughts.

The collection includes washbasins, a drawer element, storage pieces and a T-grab handle bar, with elements made in SaphirKeramik. Its strength lies in how quietly it works. PAR does not treat support as a visible concession, but as part of the bathroom’s architecture. In doing so, it reframes the bathroom as a space that can adapt over time, accompanying changing needs with clarity and dignity.

GROHE

GROHE’s Milan Design Week presentation continued the bathroom’s movement toward wellness, atmosphere and architectural integration. With GROHE SPA Aqua Sanctuary, the brand explored water as a sensory and spatial material, presenting the bathroom not simply as a functional room, but as a place of ritual, restoration and highly personalised design.

Within the installation, GROHE SPA Atrio Private Collection was shown as part of a fully integrated bathroom environment, centred around a continuous cascade waterfall. The collection brought together premium materials, refined finishes and handle designs with quartz inserts, while the GROHE SPA x Buster + Punch collaboration extended this language across metal hardware, lighting and water solutions.

GROHE also presented Allure Gravity in Phantom Black with Caesarstone Vanilla Noir details, alongside Rainshower Aqua Tiles and flush-mounted Grohtherm controls. These pieces were arranged around the rituals of preparation, relaxation and rejuvenation, with technology designed to recede so that water, tactility and atmosphere could take precedence. Material innovation also formed part of the story, with revia, a circular material made from recycled waste, and PremiAL R100, a low-carbon material made from 100 per cent recycled aluminium, suggesting a future where luxury and environmental responsibility are more closely aligned.

2026 Salone del Mobile
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