Tax Credit Furniture
Fake Authentic - Mistakes, Fuorisalone Milano
Built interventions in Italy have recently focused on improving the energy efficiency of the existing building stock, driven by a tax incentive program known as the “Superbonus 110%.” Launched in July 2020 as part of Italy’s post-pandemic recovery strategy, the scheme has approved over 150,000 applications and mobilized more than €30 billion in funding, offering tax credits of up to 110% on construction costs. Tax Credit Furniture invites a critical reflection on the contemporary construction industry and its alignment with new performance standards. While this shift is essential to address the climate crisis, it is also reshaping how we engage with the built environment. One such material is graphite expanded polystyrene, a thermal insulation product that has become emblematic of this transformation. Its overproduction and speculative price increases reveal some of the incentive’s unintended consequences. In cities where polystyrene façades have proliferated, what often remains is waste and offcuts, still eligible under the tax credit scheme and thus funded by the state. This installation is constructed from 0.4 cubic meters of such leftover material, revealing the sensitive and fragile qualities typically hidden beneath layers of plaster. The resulting piece is a carefully assembled composition of these material “orphans,” stripped of their intended architectural purpose. The outcome is an ambiguous objector "furniture", whose function is merely suggested through its volumetric articulation. In its form, it echoes architectural elements, or perhaps an architectural model. Just as volumes help buildings mediate their presence within the urban fabric, here volume becomes a tool for dialogue; between the object, its environment, and the people who encounter it.
