4 Must-See Eco-Friendly 3D Printed Designs From Milan Design Week 2025
I’m tired of hearing that we can’t have beautiful products without harming the planet. You should be too.
At Milan Design Week 2025 in Italy, 3D printing was on the rise as it broke boundaries for product design and sustainability. The show featured many stunning designs, but I found 4 eco-friendly and 3D printed product designs that made me rethink my approach to materials and production.
Additive manufacturing goes beyond a temporary trend. How and what we 3D print fundamentally changes industrial design and total product lifecycles.
1. Lighting Design: Circularity Meets Customization
One of the standout contributions to Milan Design Week 2025 came from Signify’s MyCreation line. The Dutch brand scaled its 3D printing operations to produce thousands of customizable luminaires through its in-house print farm. Their products are designed for the circular economy, meaning they’re made responsibly and should be discarded responsibly.
Nuevo Alta (New Dawn) by Aga Blonska Studio was another 3D printed lighting piece, this time, made from PHAs. The bio-based material is derived from microbes that are fully biodegradable, even in compost. This means if you take the lamp apart and plant it in soil, it will dissolve in an environmentally considerate way. It’s developed and printed by 3D Makers Zone, and the piece showcases an elegant blend of sustainability and attention to detail.
Image Sources: myCreation, Designwanted, The Gleam, Aga Blonska Studio
2. Furniture: AI, Robotics, and Radical Forms
Decibel hosted PORTAL, a futuristic furniture collection of 10 unique 3D printed chairs. Designed using Vizcom AI modeling software, it was brought to life through robotic manufacturing. The chairs were printed from recycled materials and embody a sustainable, tech-driven vision for the future of design. In this case, two new types of industrial design technology fuse to reinvent a classic product like chairs.
Certain designers are making a name for themselves in the eco-conscious product design space. Emerging talents like Zara Adler and Jan Contala leveraged 3D printing to create expressive, functional furniture and homeware. Contala’s ceraLAB studio introduced a 3D printed ceramic collection that stood out when it came to form and 3D printed packaging. The holistic take on digital craftsmanship with our new ability to 3D print using ceramics.
Image Sources: Decibel, VoxelMatters
3. Footwear: Biopolymers and Modularity
A major leap forward in sustainable fashion came through the collaboration between Balena, Recreus, and Milan-based software studio MoonRabbit Lab. Using BioCir Flex3D, a flexible biodegradable polymer, the team created a series of modular footwear designs that merge material innovation with fashionable design. Whether you want to walk on soil or responsibly dispose of your shoes in it, these products have you covered.
MoonRabbit Lab was also behind other footwear 3D printed designs like the Puma Mostro sneakers. This latest project reflects how additive manufacturing is becoming mainstream. It brings modularity, eco-responsibility, and customization to the footwear industry at scale.
Image Sources: Just Style, Deezen, Balena Science, VoxelMatters
4. Experimental Objects and Material Innovation
3D printing’s experimental spirit was on full display in projects like Leo Koda’s InFillOut collection. It contains objects printed with special infill patterns that start compact and lightweight, and then expand when submerged in hot water. Expanding air pockets inside the structure make this possible and challenge product packaging and weight limit restrictions.
InFillOut is a playful yet functional design that gives us the potential for programmable matter that can adapt physical properties. You can watch it happen in real time in this video of how it works.
Image Sources: InFillOut, VoxelMatters
Conclusion: A Redrawn Map of Design
Milan Design Week 2025 showed that 3D printing is pushing and stretching the boundaries of product design and environmentalism. Sustainable additive manufacturing is moving out of the prototyping lab and into commercial industries. It offers a new language for designers, one that speaks of local production, material circularity, product customization, and technological creativity.
As 3D printing evolves, so does the definition of what’s possible. Don’t let anyone tell you products can’t be beautiful and environmentally friendly.
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