Architect, co-founder and CEO of Progetto CMR, for more than thirty years Massimo Roj has led one of Italy’s leading integrated design studios, with a portfolio ranging from master plans to skyscrapers and industrial design. Now he is entering the world of yacht design. With A Journey Home, one of the winners in a competition promoted by Cantori in collaboration with Cantiere delle Marche for the Flexplorer 146 explorer yacht, Roj and his team have created Progetto CMR’s official debut in the yacht-building world.
“We entered this sector with a respectful attitude, motivation and a desire to explore a new field”, he says. “The starting point was our Inside Out design method, which places the needs of the people who are to live the spaces at the centre of things. The project develops on the basis of listening to people’s needs”. Progetto HMR applies this humanistic philosophy at all levels, and has now encountered the compact, moving spaces of a yacht.
“It was an intriguing challenge”, Roj continues. “When we took it on, we were backed by our design experience, reflecting Ernesto Nathan Rogers’ famous slogan “From the spoon to the city”, which means that architects should be capable of designing everything from objects of everyday use to entire urban areas”. This approach has also borne fruit in design. “We won the IF Design Award for Yo Metal, an outdoor chair made by Frezza, for the second time in 2025. We were competing in a field of 11,000 candidates from 66 countries”.
A Journey Home interweaves legend and modernity, drawing inspiration from the story of Ulysses and Penelope, a symbol of voyage and return, where the idea of home becomes a metaphor. In this design the home in question is not just a place to come back to, it’s the combination of affects that bond two people”, says Roj. “We wanted to present an architecture of relationships where the spaces are stages in a journey of the emotions”.
The main deck embodies sailing, “The voyage of Ulysses with lines that open out like the wake created by a yacht on the on the water, natural fabrics that recall the wind and salt, lightweight, sinuous shapes.” The owner’s cabin represents “the waiting, with soft veils and moonlight creating an intimate refuge”, while the main saloon relates “the return, the meeting of two lovers, where warm woods and delicately shaped metals combine in a circular embrace”.
All this is translated into a journey of the emotions. The same narrative tension shapes CMR’s urban projects, like the The Sign business district in Milan, “A sign that reconnects the area to the surrounding community, with a strip of light linking buildings, piazzas and green spaces”. Because sustainability is not an add-on, but a structural choice. When relating the history of his studio, Roj’s starting point is a symbolic project – the redevelopment of Milan’s Torre Garibaldi. “An icon of the 1980s that we reinterpreted in 2006, designing Italy’s first eco-tower. The facades are studded with 3,200 modular cells to create a constantly changing pattern of reflected light”.
This stylistic code can also be seen in the Bivacco Camardella, located at La Thuile at an altitude of over 3,000 metres. “In the Bivacco I see a point of contact with the experience involving the Cantiere delle Marche. It was designed to stand up to extreme environmental conditions, like explorer yachts that take on all sea conditions. In both cases the interiors are designed down to the smallest detail to provide maximum comfort. We took an integrated approach blending architecture, engineering and design, enabling us to assess from the outset if we’re on the right course”.
“Of course, we’ll keep on exploring the yacht design world”, says the architect. “Starting off with the world leader in explorer yacht construction gave us the confidence and conviction that we’re on the right path. I think it’s important to work with companies that share our vison of coherence and innovation”.
Looking to the future, Roj sees a growing a growing convergence between architecture and designing for the sea. “The architecture of the future should work with awareness, with the systematic integration of innovative, responsible materials. I imagine floating spaces that are increasingly designed to encourage a functional mix, something that already exists on land – hybrid spaces that are well-conceived and designed to respond to the desires of the people who will inhabit them”.
Gaia Grassi
