TOMI, a project by FORO Studio for the Milano Design Week 2019 that acts as a bridge between Italian and Japanese culture, is a mobile space where you can have a packed lunch, as well as an area of ​​relaxation and interaction in the urban area. Actually, the food was chosen as an element of meeting and conviviality. The sense of the ‘schiscetta’ and the bento box, containers for transporting food typical of the culture of Milan and Tokyo, revives in an essential modular system, dismountable and transportable, which generates a place for meeting and hospitality.

The project interprets the theme of portability by expanding a transportable object in a physical space. The structure is simple, easy to manufacture and assembly and disassembly, both for the indoor and the outdoor. It combines the Japanese culture with the Italian one in a captivating way, using traditional elements in order to meet the contemporary city's need to create spaces in which to take a break and socialize.

TOMI is inspired by the yatai – stalls introduced during the Edo period to sell street food like ramen and sushi – and revisits them with a structure composed of tubes Innocenti, a historical product of the Milanese manufacture of the Lambrate district. However, many other references are linked to the two cultures: a red and suspended lacquered decorative sphere becomes a tribute to the Japanese flag, while a reinterpretation of the Noren, the traditional fabric dividers used by shops and restaurants, protect from the sun. The large table in the centre of the space, on the other hand, belongs to the Italian culture of the banquet, in which, in front of a nice plate of pasta, you can talk about anything.

The ADF Aoyama Design Forum, a Japanese organization founded with the aim of helping to spread the culture of quality design, rewards FORO Studio with the Best Performance Award – at the Design Week 2019 – and sponsors the realization and the exhibition of the project TOMI. The ADF, which has always encouraged through its initiatives the creation of a network of relationships between designers from the international field, between October and December 2018 has announced the ADF Milano Salone Design Award 2019, a contest that invites designers from all over the world to present their own project ideas on the theme of "Portable Space".