3 ways to make more of your white walls

I was just about to give even the last white room in my home a hit of dopamine with a coat of colourful paint. But then I went to see Mohd – Mollura Home Design’s showroom. For Milan Design Week, the Italian interior design company wrapped the room in white fabric panels and walls, turning one floor into 13 rooms. The idea? To convey its pluralistic vision for the home in every room, celebrating a range of design styles.

The exhibition titled «Mohd Sinfonia» was designed by Nichetto Studio. He went for white, draped fabric panels and walls to improve aesthetics and acoustics and give the space a theatrical feel. And this he did. The floating textiles really hogged the limelight.

What struck me as much more spectacular, however, was how the walls looked so multifaceted despite their lack of colour. These are the five things I’ll be copying from the exhibition before going anywhere near my own walls with a paintbrush.

1. White isn’t always just white

Snowy white, eggshell or champagne – even the subtlest gradations make a difference when you deliberately showcase them. In the Mohd installations, great care was taken to dot the space with different coloured furniture. This created contrasts and separated the individual shades of white.

In addition, Mohd went for the occasional textured surfaces when choosing the pieces of furniture. Thanks to shadows cast, even white designs turn into eye-catchers with a white wall as a backdrop.

2. Lighting is everything

The fact that the individual monochrome scenes looked so impressive was also down to the different sources of light. Mounted to a wall, they set an accent by being three-dimensional alone.

Table lamps

Flos Taccia Small Led Table Lamp

1290 lm

Wall lamps + Ceiling lamps

Gubi Cobra Wall Lamp Wall Lamp

E14

Pendant lamps

Fritz Hansen Orient P1 Pendant Light

E27

Table lamps

Flos Taccia Small Led Table Lamp

1290 lm

Wall lamps + Ceiling lamps

Gubi Cobra Wall Lamp Wall Lamp

E14

Pendant lamps

Fritz Hansen Orient P1 Pendant Light

E27

But also the table and floor lamps distributed around the room act as spotlights for the individual pieces of furniture. But thanks to the warm white hues, this is done more discretely than on a real stage.

3. Warming materials

Wooden furniture prevents the white walls from giving the room the feel of an ice box. Thanks to their striking grain, any chair or table turns into a head-turner and their brown tones visually warm up the room. To add warmth to the set-ups, textiles were given centre stage. From carpets to upholstered furniture – soft fabrics are a distraction from monotonous walls and invite you to stay.

And the best thing about all the all this non-colour? Everything comes into its own in equal measure. The exhibition harmoniously brought together new collections by Baxter, CC-Tapis, Noom, Vitra and Wittmann, as well as well-known design classics from Gubi, Flos, MDF Italia or Fritz Hansen against a white curtain backdrop. After all, everything’s just a question of the right composition.