Milan Design Week 2026: the Must-See Kids-Friendly Events
From "Il Saloncino" by Primo & Young Folks to Queeboo’s Rabbit Unbound and Nabè’s early debut, plus more...
Architects, designers, brands, and curious minds from all over the world gather in Milan to see what’s next. And yet, some of the most interesting things happening this year are perfectly scaled for smaller humans.
Here are three stops where design meets childhood, imagination, and just the right amount of wonder.
Il Saloncino by Primo & Young Folks (April 21–29)
Forget miniature chairs that are only cute in theory. Il Saloncino is where design for children becomes a serious (but not too serious) matter.
Curated by Primo and Young Folks, this project brings together brands and creatives who understand that kids don’t need simplified design, they need better design. Smarter, more playful, more intuitive.
From April 21 to 29, Il Saloncino transforms into a dedicated space where aesthetics meet usability, and where objects are designed to be touched, explored, and occasionally misunderstood (as all good things should be). Expect color, experimentation, and that rare feeling that someone actually thought about children as users, not just as an afterthought.
📍Via Podgora 16
Some projects don’t just anticipate the calendar, they quietly redefine the landscape. Italian start-up Nabè opened its first flagship store in Milan, marking its debut into physical retail with a space entirely dedicated to evolutive furniture for children.
More than a store, it’s an immersive environment where design meets pedagogy and everyday family life. The idea is simple but radical: a bedroom that grows with the child, adapting over time instead of being constantly replaced.
Spanning 180 square meters, the space introduces a different approach to kids’ interiors: a shift from temporary solutions to objects designed to evolve, transform, and remain meaningful across different stages of childhood.
It’s not just about buying furniture. It’s about choosing how children grow within a space.
📍 Via San Gregorio 44, Milan
Also ANFA arrived slightly ahead of the Design Week rush, like that friend who shows up early and somehow already knows where everything interesting is.
This project moves in a more experimental direction, exploring what design for children can be when it’s freed from expectations. Less “cute”, more conceptual. Less obvious, more open-ended.
Think objects that don’t immediately explain themselves, spaces that invite interpretation, and a general feeling that maybe kids are better at understanding design than we are.
Pieces like Candy chair, Happy lamp & Hoppy table set the tone: playful, slightly surreal, and unapologetically bold.
But let’s go back to the whirlwind rhythm of Milan Design Week.
You’ve probably seen it before: the rabbit chair by Stefano Giovannoni for Queeboo, one of those objects that quietly crossed from kids’ rooms into design icon territory. With Rabbit Unbound, that familiar silhouette takes a new step. Same playful DNA, but expanded, reinterpreted, and slightly more self-aware.
It’s still a rabbit. You can still sit on it. But now it also tells a bigger story about how objects evolve, travel across audiences, and blur the line between collectible design and everyday play.
In short: it’s what happens when design refuses to stay in its lane.
📍 Qeeboo Loft, Via Enrico Stendhal 35 (21-26 April)
In Milan everything moves fast and inspiration hides around every corner, but there’s another project worth slowing down for.
We’re happy to highlight the participation of Beirut-based designer Davina Atallah, presenting her project House Humbaba, part of the exhibition Default Is Not Universal – The Same Design, Different Perceptions at the 📍 Isola Design District: the show brings together designers from North Africa and the Middle East, regions whose cultural narratives feel especially urgent right now.
Right in the heart of Milan Centrale Station, Città del Sole surprises visitors with a giant-scale installation of Il Gioco delle Favole by Enzo Mari. From April 20 to May 3, the iconic interlocking panels, originally published by Corraini Edizioni, transform into an immersive architectural playground.
Six oversized panels, populated by animals and botanical elements, become a space to build, deconstruct, and reimagine endlessly. Not quite a book, not quite a toy, more like a narrative device you can walk through.
The Design Week is the perfect moment to rediscover play as a design language in itself. That’s why Stephan Schenk, founder of Stapelstein, introduces the new Water Lily collection.
Inspired by the colors of a pond dotted with water lilies, the collection celebrates the quiet perfection of nature, translated into modular play objects designed to move, stack, and evolve.
It’s an open invitation for children (and, let’s be honest, adults too) to explore balance, creativity, and movement through infinite combinations.
📍 Family Nation Store, Via Piero della Francesca 3, Milan
🗓 April 22, 4:30 PM
Design Week is often seen as a grown-up territory: meetings, installations, aperitivos, and very serious conversations about chairs.
But projects like these remind us of something simple: design starts with curiosity. And no one does curiosity better than kids.
text Enrico Fragale Esposito