Raffaella Monica Mangiarotti, architect, designer and creative director, was born in 1965. She graduated with honours in Architecture from the Politecnico di Milano in 1991 with Tomàs Maldonado and in 1994 she obtained her PhD on design for environmental issues, i.e. the environmental impact of complex industrial products. Since 2001, she has been a researcher at the same university, teaching Industrial Design and Fashion Design. In 1995, she met Matteo Bazzicalupo at the editorial office of Modo magazine and, after several years of individual experience – collaborating with Marco Zanuso and Francesco Trabucco – she decided to found the deepdesign studio with him in 1999, an innovative design company working in various fields: from food packaging to consumer electronics, from furniture to cosmetics. The studio’s work is characterised by a functional and sustainable approach. With this in mind, they have carried out projects and designed products for companies and organisations such as Barilla, Brevi, Castelli Haworth, Coca Cola, the Turin 2006 Olympic Games Committee, Coop, Daimler Chrysler, Fratelli Rossetti, Giorgetti, Glaxo Smithkline, JVC, Kitchen Aids, Kraft Suchard, Imetec, Inblu, Mandarina Duck, Misuraemme, Nec, Panasonic, RSVP, San Lorenzo and Whirlpool Europe.

In 2010, she founded the Raffaella Mangiarotti studio, where she specialises in furniture design, art direction, showrooms and exhibition stands, collaborating with international brands. She was art director at Serralunga (2010-2015), Manerba (2014-2018) and IOC (since 2018). With the latter, she began a fruitful collaboration that has resulted in several products: Monforte, a sound-absorbing fabric partition; the Lodovica armchair, the Bicocca chaise longue, the Guastalla oval coffee table, the Ghisolfa armchairs and sofas with high backs, the Magenta office chairs, and the Cordusio and Sempione desks and meeting tables. He also designed and created various pieces of furniture for Manerba, such as the Undecided family of sofas, armchairs and small armchairs, the Litta tables, the CUP upholstered pouf and the Bague sofas. For B-Line, he designed the Merano collection of sofas, armchairs, poufs and small sofas in fabric.

Some of his products are exhibited in museums and form part of permanent collections, as well as being published in numerous books and magazines. The Dandelion lamp is part of the Design and Architecture collection at MoMA in New York. The Milan Triennale dedicated a solo exhibition to his work, entitled “L’anima Sensibile delle Cose” (The Sensitive Soul of Things), curated by Cristina Morozzi (with a catalogue published by Electa). He has received several international awards: he has won prizes in the Young & Design competitions (1996, 1997, 1999, 2000), Cosmopack (1995, 1996), Esaedro (1997) and ID Design (1996, 1997, 1999, 2000). Design (1996, 1997, 1999, 2000), Cosmopack (1995, 1996), Esaedro (1997), ID Award (2004), Compasso d’Oro Selection (2005) and the Green Dot Award (2009). In 2017, 2018 and 2021, she was named Ambassador of Italian Design in the world. As part of her research work at the Politecnico di Milano, she is the author of several patents and has published numerous studies on the relationship between design and sustainability, fashion and design, aesthetics and technology. In 2000, she published the book Il DFE in impresa. Design for Environment: il progetto di prodotti eco-compatibili (DFE in business. Design for Environment: the design of eco-compatible products) for Maggioli editore.