The “Roots” project by Regione Lombardia and the National Cluster Italia Foresta Legno

Regione Lombardia, with the support of Fondazione Fiera Milano, opens the doors of its institutional headquarters from February 6 to March 15, 2026, on the occasion of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, launching the Oasi Life Experience – Casa Lombardia 2026 format.
A project aimed at the public and international media, conceived by Letizia Fontanelli (ideaintegrale) and Francesca Russo (DDN), with a design intervention by Progetto CMR, tasked with shaping a collective narrative.

“ROOTS”
Within this context, “Roots” is born — a project by Regione Lombardia and the National Cluster Italia Foresta Legno, curated by Matteo Ragni Studio — which brings the worlds of design and forestry into dialogue with a clear objective: to bring forest care back to the center and make forest heritage accessible, understandable, and close to everyone, not only to professionals or sector enthusiasts. “The tree is the guardian of invisible stories, and the installation seeks to capture the deep bond that unites us with it,” said Matteo Ragni, curator of the project. “Like roots spreading through the soil, the ‘Roots’ installation celebrates the connections and relationships that support us and accompany us throughout life. Roots sink into the ground, into their point of origin, and at the same time extend outward to explore. This is the most meaningful story that trees silently tell us.”

Roots takes shape from the awareness that forests are not merely natural resources, but living cultural and social ecosystems that require care, management, and new narratives. Through the language of design, the project aims to enhance sustainable activities in forests, transforming land stewardship into a shared and participatory experience.
Design thus becomes a mediating tool: capable of translating technical knowledge into understandable forms, objects, and projects; of stimulating curiosity and awareness; and of bringing a broader audience closer to the forest world. Roots seeks to portray the forest not as something distant or reserved for a few, but as a shared space to be known, respected, and safeguarded.

At the center stands the tree, guardian of invisible stories and deep bonds enclosed in wood: a renewable raw material that connects us to the mountain areas where it has grown and represents their very soul. Its grain tells the story of the territories’ climate, and of the work of the men and women who have cultivated and transformed it over time, in a narrative imbued with respect and sustainability, one that is continually renewed and never stops. “Roots” is conceived as an experience of conviviality: a suspended moment of encounter, listening, and sharing.
Among symbolic roots, the space becomes welcoming and rich in meaning, giving shape to emotions and relationships. The symbolism of trees and the wood that comes from them — cultivated with expertise and patience — becomes a message: not immobility, but an invitation to act and to build, to embrace the gifts of nature, in the awareness that just as wood, within a sustainable circularity, can be transformed infinitely many times, so too can we change, in search of new ways of being and living.

The structure of the installation is based on a simple, flexible, and easily reconfigurable construction system. The modules that compose it are made of wooden planks of different lengths — 1 m and 1.5 m — which radiate naturally into the space, evoking the organic expansion of roots in the ground. At the heart of the installation, a speaker’s corner takes shape, a focal point that expresses the essence of sociality: a space dedicated to storytelling and exchange, inviting visitors to engage in dialogue with the theme and with one another, fully immersing themselves in the experience.