Progetto CMR, an integrated design company belonging to the Progetto CMR International Holding, with its Design Unit led by designer Matteo Colombo, is among the winners of the first edition of the Cantori Design Challenge, the interior yacht design contest promoted by Cantori in collaboration with Cantiere delle Marche.
With the goal of interpreting three iconic environments — the Owner Cabin, Main Saloon, and Main Deck — of a Flexplorer 146 Yacht, ten prestigious Italian architecture and interior design firms competed with creativity and aesthetic research.
The theme “From Land to Sea” guided the design, inviting participants to translate onto water the comfort and aesthetic language of the home world, taking inspiration from four pairs of imaginary yacht owners: James Bond & Honey Ryder, Penelope & Ulysses, Warhol & Basquiat, Federico Fellini & Giulietta Masina. Four archetypes to transform the yacht into a narrative place where myth, glamour, and contemporary art dialogue with design.
“A Journey Home” by Progetto CMR, developed by the team composed of Matteo Colombo, Michela Valentino, and Valentina Roj, is a tale of sea and return, an intertwining of movement and stillness inspired by the myth of Ulysses and Penelope, where each designed area becomes a stage of an emotional journey.
The Main Deck becomes the navigation, the journey of Ulysses: lines that open like trails on the water, natural fabrics that evoke wind and salt, lightweight shapes suspended above sinuous benches. The Owner’s Cabin represents the waiting, patient and protected, of Penelope: soft veils and moonlight create an intimate refuge, where presence becomes a silent strength.
The Main Saloon embodies the return, the meeting of the two beloved: warm woods and delicate metallic accents envelop the space in a circular embrace, where time stops and two paths finally converge.
A design vision of great inspiration, founded on a narrative framework not only capable of evoking literary suggestions, but of translating them into spaces that restore the essence of journey and waiting: the deck as a metaphor for the voyage, the cabin as a place of memory, the saloon as the embrace of return.
“It is not just a vessel, not just a sum of spaces to inhabit,” states Matteo Colombo, Head of Interior & Product Design at Progetto CMR. “It is a journey home, a journey within oneself. The reinterpretation of a story that belongs to us, and that encapsulates in itself the principles of yachting: the adventure of travel on one hand, the protection of home on the other, mixed into a unique experience made of style and emotion.”
Progetto CMR will be present at the Monaco Yacht Show (September 24–27, 2025), one of the most prestigious events in the sector, at the stand of Cantiere delle Marche. Afterwards, a publication by Cantori for Cantiere delle Marche will collect the projects to be presented to yacht owners of the shipyard.
