“I’m not a traditional designer,” says Stefano Seletti, matter-of-factly, though it’s not a disclaimer. “I always work on the emotional part of design,” he continues. “I’m not a technician. I’m not an industrial designer. I never work on the product. I work on the emotion that the product can give you.”
That instinct — to focus on feeling rather than form — is precisely what made SELETTI the
right creative force to partner with IQOS during Milan Design Week 2025. The collaboration, titled Curious X: Sensorium Piazza, is far from a typical product showcase. It’s an immersive, multisensory environment that challenges how people interact with space, technology, and each other. Unveiled earlier this month, the installation reimagines the traditional Italian piazza as a living, breathing digital ecosystem. One that captures memories, projects faces onto ever-shifting architectural forms, and blurs the line between audience and artwork.
For SELETTI, the project’s name, Curiosity, was the true brief. “I always was curious,” he says. “You know, I started to work with my father when I started going with him to the Far East — looking at the factories, the manufacturing procedure, the arts and crafts. I started since the beginning to change a little bit of the material’s colour, a little bit of the shades…not as a designer, but to transform some detail, just to go out from the normal concept.”
That idea — of pushing against the normal — is embedded in every aspect of Sensorium Piazza. Commissioned as part of IQOS’s new experiential platform, Curious X, the installation aims to ignite exactly that: a sense of openness, play, and transformation. For IQOS, curiosity is a way of living. One that supports its wider mission to replace cigarettes with innovative, smokefree alternatives for adult users. More than 32 million people globally have already made the switch, according to Philip Morris International. But if the brand’s journey began with technology, its future — at least this week in Milan — is rooted in art.
From the outside, the Sensorium Piazza appears almost dreamlike — a glowing space designed to provoke interaction rather than passive viewing. Step inside, and visitors are greeted by sensory cues that evolve throughout the day: shifting visuals, ambient soundscapes, and even curated scents. At its heart is an invitation: to leave your mark, literally.
“Inside you have the possibility to take a picture, and then the picture will be integrated in the other room,” says Seletti. “It’s super fun. So it’s something that we try always to do… and also with a new project that we are launching now in Corso Garibaldi, in our showroom, we are working on a similar concept.”
For SELETTI, the piazza was always going to be the right metaphor — a space of exchange,
conversation, and community. “Piazza for Italians is something very important,” he explains. “It’s the place where I used to play football. Like all the Italian guys, all Italians start to connect inside the piazza. So we decided together to redefine the concept of piazza — looking at the future, looking at the sensation, looking at what could be improved, what
could become the new piazza.”
That future-facing lens doesn’t mean discarding tradition — far from it. SELETTI’s creative
language has always danced between classical form and pop-inspired provocation. Sensorium Piazza reflects that tension, with digital layers unfolding over motifs of Roman ornamentation and marble-like textures. “We would like to be different,” he says. “With IQOS, it was really easy because they like to make experiments, they like innovation. So we decided to do something that nobody did before.”
And they did. According to the team, the project took close to a year to complete — not just
in terms of design but in the deep integration of technology, art, and user experience. “It was super challenging,” Seletti admits. “Because, for example, the technology today gives you a lot of possibilities. But I was there to discover which is the one that cannot be done. I always wondered what they cannot do. But I want that.”
It’s this attitude — irreverent, inquisitive, but laser-focused — that has made SELETTI one of Italy’s most unconventional creative figures. The eponymous brand, founded in 1964 and later shaped by Stefano, has always looked to the surreal and the joyful to rewrite the rules of what design can be. Lamps shaped like monkeys, tables made from road signs — the brand’s pieces are at once objects and provocations. With IQOS, though, the challenge was to design a feeling. To transform a product-driven brand into an emotional, spatial journey.
“I learned a lot,” says Seletti of the collaboration. “I started to work with a huge professional
team; with nice people and with a giant company that taught me a lot.” But it wasn’t just
technical knowledge. It was an exchange of values. “Each other gives us a lot,” he says simply. “I always hope to give a lot.”
So what does SELETTI want people to take away from the Sensorium Piazza?
“I hope that people could become more curious,” he says. “Not only about the collaboration
between SELETTI and IQOS. But we need to be more curious. Because it’s just from the
curiosity that we can start to think in a different way. We start to redesign a little bit our
world. And we need to do something for our future. Integrating a piece in your behaviour.”
That may sound poetic, even lofty – but it’s grounded in what’s actually happening in Milan, especially during design week. At Sensorium Piazza, art doesn’t hang quietly on a wall but it moves, and in a way, it remembers you and reflects your presence back to you. The result is an emotional one. Just as Seletti intended.
The installation ran until April 13 at Opificio 31, but its legacy isjust beginning. Later this year, the project will evolve into a physical product – another bold first for IQOS, and one SELETTI promises will be unlike anything either brand has done before.
The piazza may have closed its doors in Milan, but the conversation it sparked – about curiosity, connection, and the future of design – continues to unfold.
The trip to Milan was facilitated by Philip Morris Management Services (Middle East) ltd.