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OIO is a project designed by Gabriela Miteva, Despoina Tzirou and Michelangelo Lamonaca in collaboration with FieraMesse BolzanoBozen. OIO is a sustainable alternative to conventional stands, so far provided by Fiera and represents an appealing solution to exhibitors and visitors of fairs related to tourism, winter sports, alpine technology, agriculture and sustainability. The versions provided up till now, use MDF panels and screws to secure them on the floor and the personalization can be achieved by the different flooring options, moquette or parquet, and by the different colors used to paint the panels and all the posters that are printed in paper and cardboards mainly.

The environmental footprint of the modern trade-shows is the main topic addressed in this project. Our aim, through this proposal, is to lower the impact of fairs, reduce the waste produced every time, improve the life cycle of the booth and introduce a circular system where every component is reused multiple times, for different purposes or up-cycled and given a second life.

But apart from the environmental side there are also social and political aspects represented. As far as the social factor is concerned, the project is directly addressing the issue of care. Care for the user by designing based on the human scale and care for the community by connecting the new proposal with local companies and initiatives that will help in the construction process. The political issues addressed are the support of the local economy, by involving local workforce and the desire to provide a sustainable booth is a political choice by itself.

How do we achieve that? With an open-source design available to anyone, explaining how they can reproduce the exact same end-result by themselves. The proposal is based on modular design that intends to be adaptable to any demand and need the end-user might have. Every component has colored signals which work as feed-forwards, indicating to the user or constructor which pieces to connect, in which way and how to build the structure. The components are clustered into 3 color-groups according to the order of assembly and the structural use of the features.

The blue section refers to the panels and their connections, the white section refers to the new “americana” structure, substituted by wooden tubes and the final one, the black section, refers to the joining of the corner pieces that hold the stand together.

After completing a workshop and a testing phase of the original idea, using an illustrated instructions’ manual, we realized that we needed a more user-friendly idea that would make the assembly and disassembly really intuitive. So we decided to use a QR code on each panel that will redirect the user to an assembly video. Using only the colors the set-up of the booth is turned into a fun activity. At the end, they can also fill a questionnaire on the effort they put into the assembly and degree on easiness/difficulty and also give us feedback on how to improve the project.

By providing key pieces that work as connections between the panels of the booth and all the personalization components, shelve, visuals and hangers, the user has complete freedom to customize the stand according to his/her specific needs. Those key pieces are wooden rods that fit into the perforated surface of the panel and provide various possibilities and combinations of personalization.