In the rarefied world of international design, few stages carry the weight of Milan. This April, at the Salone del Mobile and the broader Milan Design Week, a Chinese brand stepped forward, not merely to exhibit, but to contribute to global design discourse.
Through a strategic exhibition approach spanning the Salone and Milan Design Week, Premium outdoor lifestyle brand Yardcom presented its complete capability chain — from advanced materials science and spatial aesthetics to fully integrated lifestyle solutions.
This is Yardcom's second appearance in Milan, following its debut in 2024. What distinguishes this year's showing is its confident assertion of systemic thinking: a deliberate move beyond isolated products toward holistic, experiential environments.
Against the backdrop of China's "dual carbon" goals and its national strategy for high-quality manufacturing development, the presentation is being viewed as an emblematic case of Chinese companies evolving from "product exporters" to "standard setters" and co-creators of global lifestyle narratives.
The global design industry is undergoing a profound shift — from a product-centric model to a system-oriented one.
Increasingly, leading brands are competing on integration, sustainability and emotional resonance, rather than objects alone.
Positioned as the flagship brand in the portfolio of parent company Ningbo Helong New Material (Helong), Yardcom has been deliberately curated to become a global high-end outdoor lifestyle brand that delivers end-to-end solutions: from spatial design and bespoke customization, to full on-site implementation.
This year, Yardcom wove its narrative around the concept of "outdoor living as a way of life." Collaborating with internationally acclaimed talent — South African firm SAOTA, Chinese designer Wu Bin, and Steve Leung — the brand transformed architectural and design languages into immersive, multi-layered environments.
"Outdoor space should no longer be merely an extension of the interior," said Yardcom founder Ma Qingjiang. "It should become a vital realm for dialogue between people and nature. Through design, we want spaces that carry emotional depth and spiritual meaning."
In the main hall of the Salone, Yardcom and SAOTA created a roughly 200-square-meter outdoor living environment inspired by the courtyard culture of Cape Town.
Using sustainable materials and architectural intelligence, the installation dissolves the boundary between inside and out.
Elsewhere, Leung's "Landscape Realm" series and Wu Bin's "Ao Ting" installation — a mountain metaphor exploring the relationship between materials, space and nature — further demonstrated the brand's ability to blend Eastern spatial philosophy with contemporary global design language.
The sophistication on display in Milan rests on a solid industrial foundation. Yardcom's systemic strength stems from its parent company, Helong, which has spent years mastering materials science and green manufacturing.
As a national-level green factory, and one of Ningbo's first "zero-carbon" facilities, Helong specializes in high-performance, environmentally friendly weather-resistant materials that meet the most stringent international standards for durability and sustainability, and its products now reach more than 30 countries and regions.
"Helong is our root — the starting point of material capability," Ma Qingjiang said. "But our ambition is not to stop at materials. We want to use them to build new expressions of lifestyle. The real transformation is turning material technology into the invisible foundation of spatial storytelling."
