Milan Design Week 2015: What We Saw & Loved

Lunch in the courtyard of Spazio Rossana Orlandi is always a highlight of Milan Design Week, worth putting a white jacket on for.

Flower chandelier made from test tubes by Polish designer Pani Jurek.

One of Enzo Catellini's sculptural light and water-based installations seen at Ventura Lambrate.

Inflatable outdoor seating, part of the Air Collection by Malafor of Poland. On view at Ventura Lambrate.

Philippe Starck's first collection for GlasItalia is stunning. Called Boxinbox, each piece is built using two sheets of heat-sealed coloured glass.

Clay Table by Marc Kursin for Desalto

Italian brand Meritalia showcased its bestselling Michetta sofa system by Gaetano Pesce, originally designed in 2005.

Colourful bowls and vases at the Bitossi Ceramiche booth, by London designer Benjamin Hubert.

Juicy Salifs cast in white aluminium were on sale at Alessi. The limited-edition celebrates the iconic citrus squeezer's 25th anniversary.

To celebrate the Lem stool, a bestseller since its launch in 2000, manufacturer LaPalma produced a short run of colourful versions.

Kartell 's plastic empire goes beyond furniture and tabletop accessories. The Italian company also has a line of fragrances.

The latest collection of vases made from porcelain and solid wood, by Milan's Kose.

Daniel Libeskind's Gemma chair for Moroso sports the angularity of his architecture.

Fabio Novembre's miniature of Porta Nuova, the gateway to Milan that is undergoing massive redevelopment defined by the new Unicredit Tower. For Driade.

Bathroom manufacturer Cotto presented its latest pieces with an elegant courtyard installation designed by Piero Lissoni.

The act of making was a big theme at Ventura Lambrate, where designers hammered, stitched, moulded at various demonstrations throughout the neighbourhood.

Design Academy Eindhoven devoted an entire exhibit to the topic of shit, including a tower made of pigeon dropping bricks.

Max Lamb rented an old car garage in downtown Milan to display his handcrafted chairs made from various materials including stone, wax and steel pipes.

One of Max Lamb's chairs made of bent Corten steel. The London designer is known for his explorations in raw materials.

Halo chandelier by Maarten Baas and Bertjan Pot uses LED bulbs normally used on ferris wheels and other carnival rides.

Caesarstone and London designer Philippe Malouin teamed up this year to install a swing set inside Milan's most palatial residences.

Mesh by Francisco Gomez Paz for Luceplan.

The Campana brothers' outdoor Estrella Collection for A Lot of Brazill. The laser-cut disks are welded together by robots.

Moooi's breathtaking display in Via Savona.

Murmurations lighting collection by Graypants mimics flocks of birds in flight.

Nessy by Emanuele Magini for Campeggi.

Acaú armchair by Sérgio Matos, shown in the MADE in Milan exhibition of Brazilian design in Palazzo Litta.

Embroidery Armchair by Johan Lindsten, one of the Cappellini NEXT prototypes.

Saen table by Oscar and Gabriele Buratti for Alias.

At its showroom, Moroso presented the art world–influenced furniture of Jörg Schellmann against a backdrop of modern art, including Daniel Buren's Unexpected Variable Configurations: A Work in Situ 1998.

The Running Magnet 2.0 from Flos's Architectural line.

Butterfly outdoor collection by Patricia Urquiola for B&B Italia.

Konstantin Gric has some fun with Samson for Magis.

Seen in the Brera design district, the Donne Illuminate collection transforms 18th-century painter Pietro Rotari's portraits into LED-lit photographic prints for hanging on the wall.

The Lexus LF-C2 concept car in a multi-mirrored installation designed by Philippe Nigro.

The Fondue Stool, by Satsuki Ohata, dips a stool-shaped sponge in bright yellow PVC. Seen at Salone Satellite.

At Salone Satellite, Morten & Jonas and Kioshi Yamamoto showed off their modular – and colourful – Hoff seating system.

Toan Nguyen's Algorithm lighting system for Vibia, and the latest blown-glass line by Vancouver's Bocci were major highlights at Euroluce.

This awe-inspiring installation in Viabizzuno's courtyard consisted of a series of silos, each delivering a unique lighting experience.

Inside a hardware store, Droog presented a display case full of playful hinges, screws and nails.

At Wallpaper's Handmade show, Josh Fisher, a metal craftsman with Emeco, poses with a steel version of Jasper Morrison's Alfi stool. Most of the exhibition, though, was devoted to food and design, including this Chef's Bag by Tod's and Milan chef Davide Oldani.

Vibrant coloured glass was everywhere in Milan. These gorgeous vessels are by Moser, a producer of luxury Bohemian glassware.

British designer Lee Broom turned a storefront in the San Gregorio DOCET area into his own department store. Inside, a new collection with old-timey charm stole the show.

At Flos, Ron Gilad created this wonderful installation to demonstrate the illumination possibilities of the company's newly acquired outdoor lighting brand, Ares.

At the Triennale di Milano, the sprawling exhibit "Arts & Foods – Rituals Since 1851" displayed farming tools, kitchen sets, Warhol pieces, vintage Coca Cola machines and everything in between.

At Ventura Lambrate, Hague-based duo Handmade Industrialsdemonstrated the making of vases and lamps, by filling a balloon with thermoplastic beads, moulding it by hand and heating it.

Nendo presented an exhibit of works completed in the past year that showed how staggeringly prolific and poetic the Japanese studio is.

The ever delightful Ingo Maurer displayed its latest lighting innovations at Euroluce, including this table lamp shaped like a speech bubble.

Foam porcelain Moonlight by Marjan van Aubel, and Floating Lamp by Booo of Eindhoven.

In Brera, Snarkitecture devised a dreamy installation for COS, a high-end clothing brand by H&M.

Lunch in the courtyard of Spazio Rossana Orlandi is always a highlight of Milan Design Week, worth putting a white jacket on for.

At the Milan furniture fair and light expo, and the offsite circuit that included almost 400 events around the city, these were some of the incredible design moments that made us stop in our tracks.

As usual, Milan Design Week was a visual feast, both at the fairgrounds and off-site, where various districts converted storefronts, courtyards, gardens and cafes into semi-exclusive showrooms.

All told, the range of venues was as impressive as the novelties on display. Droog choose to exhibit a new line of joinery within an actual hardware store and Max Lamb rented out an old car garage to show off his growing collection of one-off chairs. Meanwhile, Philippe Malouin, working with Caesarstone, installed a swing set inside a gilded palazzo where Napoleone Bonaparte once resided. Visitors rode the swings, surrounded by frescoes all over the walls and ceiling.

Salone del Mobile still remains the biggest fair of its kind, and this year the focus was on lighting. Taking over four of the main halls, Euroluce presented the biggest brands on the continent, and some from beyond. The blown-glass collection – somewhat recalling water-filled balloons – at the booth of Vancouver brand Bocci was a surefire crowd-pleaser. Vibia presented an endlessly modular light scheme by Toan Nguyen; and LG Chem showed the latest evolution of OLEDs, in pendants and wall fixtures that seemed the technology’s most practical iteration yet.

Here are 50 of our favourite moments captured during the week.

Selected by Catherine Osborne, Elizabeth Pagliacolo and Nelda Rodger.