Fast bikes & slow kitchens
In the industrial periphery of Bologna in San Lazzaro Di Savena is designer Riccardo Randi's showroom and warehouse, Very Simple Studio.
While working on the reinvention of the urban kitchen, opening physical doors in the former HQ of moped company Velomotor Testi was kismet to Randi whose hobby is fixing vintage motorbikes. He rides his 1991 Honda XRV rd04 to and from the studio where he too works around metal daily.
I met Randi and his co-founder and collaborator Federica Poluzzi during Milan’s Salone del Mobile in 2018. Just starting out, a love knowledge for Bologna and a mission to scale their “made in Italy” ethos charmed me. The industrial inspired kitchen spoke to my New Yorker within. I was recently married and on the hunt for a rental apartment in Milan. I swiped through listings of kitchens with tubes and wires emerging from walls covered in fading antique cementine tiles; lines left on pretty pavimento floors from stoves and ovens taken away along with previous tenants shelves. Just a lightbulb remained. I had visions of daily moka pot brew splatters and over full pots of salty pasta water bubbled over. “Fast kitchen” may be an obvious choice for rentals with multiyear rent control. However, the thought of buying appliances (that I’d eventually move with!), meant to me that the countertops and drawers should also be meant to last. Furnishing a kitchen you might want to move with some day is commonplace in Italy and designing a non arredato (unfurnished aka no kitchen!) apartment was my daily daydream and frequent nightmare. In the end, we found a flat with a built-in “continuous kitchen.” Even if I still want to ditch the deep corner cabinet doors that are hard to organize and liberate my kitchen gadgets and tools from behind opaque doors, Poluzzi came by to assure me that what I had found was right for our space.
While Very Simple Studio (VCC) business is mostly homeowners and offices, Randi and Poluzzi played into my American naivete, though it does hold a bit of weight. Sustainability is not only sourcing locally but is reflected in the material value. Steel is durable and recyclable.
Randi met Poluzzi as an engineering student at Università di Bologna and then left mid-degree for Milan to finish his studies in product design at IED Istituto Europeo di Design. They reconnected when he went back to Bologna and created the first Very Simple Kitchen prototype in Randi's garage. With the slick vision of a Bologna-based design agency they paid for with their savings, VSS doors opened with a website only at first. They relied on friends and family, including Randi’s social media strategist girlfriend (now mother to son Romeo and business partner in a hotel project) to get the word out on Instagram. While traditional suppliers refused to believe social media and passa parola would create enough buzz to sell their metal kitchen, orders for VSS kitchens lit up their inbox. Randi's mother, a restaurant entrepreneur, shared her connections to steel suppliers, which brought them trust and a line of credit.
