STUDIO
A Design Studio Research Lab Knowledge Transfer
grounded in
Research
Ate Rote is a Design-Studio founded on Research.
It works across product design, furniture, installations and experimental systems.
By bringing together professional practice, independent research and academic inquiry, it explores how research can become products, systems and tangible realities.
Profile
Identity, approach and organisation of the studio.
↓ Open
Founded by Roberto Rota, Ate Rote is an independent design–research studio working across product design, furniture, installations and experimental systems. It transforms research at the expanding frontiers of design into tangible artefacts, connecting professional practice, independent inquiry and academic research.
Research and practice are consubstantial: design emerges from the investigation of cultural, technological, material and social change, while projects, experiments and prototypes test and transform the knowledge produced.
Structure
Ate Rote is organised through three interconnected divisions: PRACTICE, LAB and TRANSFER.
PRACTICE develops research-led work for companies, institutions and cultural organisations, alongside self-initiated projects. Its outcomes range from industrial products, furniture and limited editions to installations, speculative concepts, experimental systems and physical prototypes. Each work translates inquiry into a specific material, functional and cultural proposition.
LAB is the studio’s transversal research core. It investigates emerging technologies, AI-augmented and data-driven design processes, material and social transformation, more-than-human perspectives, future scenarios and new organisational models for design practice. Human judgement is combined with data analysis, AI, computational design and advanced prototyping to produce datasets, analytical maps, custom tools, concepts, relational systems and tangible experiments.
TRANSFER makes the knowledge developed through research and practice accessible within educational and collaborative contexts. It currently includes teaching and design education roles at the University of the Aegean, and courses such as ‘Generative AI for Concept Creation’ at the Vardakeios Foundation. It also provides a framework for future forms of knowledge exchange, dissemination and applied learning.
Organisation
Ate Rote operates as a distributed and location-independent practice, connecting on-site research in Syros with design development and prototyping near Bergamo. This model emerges from Roberto Rota’s research into the socio-technical and post-hierarchical transformation of design practice, and combines the continuity of a stable direction with the adaptability of project-specific teams.
International networks of designers, researchers, engineers, manufacturers, craftspeople and cultural institutions are assembled according to the knowledge and capabilities required by each project. On-site inquiry and making therefore remain connected to a flexible, non-co-located design organisation.
People
ROBERTO ROTA
He’s the founder and Design Director of Ate Rote. Former Executive Design Director for Italy at Artop Design Group, he has more than fifteen years of experience in product design and innovation across Europe and China, including the management of international design teams and research into design trends and languages.
He is currently based at the Department of Product and Systems Design Engineering, University of the Aegean, where his research investigates data-driven and AI-enhanced design processes, generative-to-parametric workflows and the organisational transformations produced by emerging technologies. His trajectory also includes teaching roles at Politecnico di Milano, the University of the Aegean and the Gran Sasso Science Institute, bringing professional practice, academic inquiry and knowledge transfer into a continuous design direction.