Lockdown put home (and furniture) back in the center of life

A blend of design and technological research, the Macaron collection by architect Laura Silvestrini is a manifesto of Piaval’s experience in working with solid wood. The chair consists of two volumes: the shell embraced by a wooden profile that ends in the front legs and the seat, into the centre of which are fitted the back legs. The superimposition of the volumes recalls the image of the French confection that the design is named after.

This chair is an expression of Jasper Morrison’s approach to design: understated, utilitarian and responsible. The base is constructed with two steel arches: one forms the front legs and the back support, the other the rear legs. Onto the base are mounted two shells in veneered plywood.

Designed by Chiara Andreatti, Suzenne is the lounge chair that Gebrüder Thonet Vienna launched in 2019. This year the small series has been extended with the addition of a small sofa to what could become a new family of seating. The Suzenne sofa takes up from the original the light structure made from solid curved beech, an encounter of straight and curved lines that supports the cane back, defined by the wooden frame.

With this chair, Eugeni Quitllet reinterprets the soft and sinuous curves of the wooden chairs from the second half of the nineteenth century. Made from injection-moulded polypropylene, Remind consists of a single element in which the seat and back are characterised by a breathable texture that makes the chair even lighter.

AB Concept is a design firm with offices in Hong Kong, Taipei and Milan, whose founders, Ed No and Terence Ngan, have begun their collaboration with Poltrona Frau with a dining chair designed to effortlessly cross the threshold between interior and exterior. The result is Viola, a chair for the dining area. Inspired by the instrument from which it takes its name, the chair features 60 strings in Frau® leather hand-stitched into the wooden frame

Presented for the first time in Stockholm in February, Basic is a large table made from solid ash or oak and comes in two versions, with an oval or a rectangular top. An original feature of this piece of furniture is that it is possible to combine together the two forms of the top to create a long table with an oval end and a rectangular one that can then be separated into smaller units.
 

Produced by Nikari

A reworking of a design by Børge Mogensen from 1971, this outdoor set consisting of a table and folding benches in teak betrays the functionalist approach of the Danish designer. Out of production for a number of years, the set now enters into the Carl Hansen & Son collection in a version that is faithful to the original with a slight increase in the height of the table and the benches to correspond to today’s average height.

With this new table for Lema, Piero Lissoni has succeeded in representing the very archetype of the table. In its formal simplicity, the Sesto table is characterised by the lightness of the rectangular top supported on a double trestle base. The seemingly simple architecture conceals a sophisticated detail that lies in the construction of the leg in which the T-shaped element that supports the top is inserted into the trestle. A wide range of materials are proposed for the top and for the legs.

A system of soft furnishings that is understated in style with generous seating designed by Piero Lissoni, Floyd-Hi 2 is characterised by the armrest set between the back and seat with its gentle curve. In the new version with metal feet, this seating programme has become modular: fluid, reassuring forms that develop in space to create the desired composition in response to the user’s living requirements.

To define the distinctive style of this collection of soft furnishings – sofa, lounge chair, pouf and bench – Valerio Sommella started with the idea of rounded and soft forms into which are sunk, almost to the point of disappearing, the wooden legs. The material on which the production of the Friuli-based manufacturer was founded, wood in Hyppo becomes a construction detail while maintaining the function of load-bearing structural element.

Born in 1977 in Japan and raised in New Zealand, Kejii Takeuchi opened his own studio in via Ripomonti in Milan after having worked for a number of years in the studio of Naoto Fukasava, first in Tokyo, then in the Lombardy capital. Takeuchi has designed this new chair for De Padova. Unconventional and enveloping and characterised by rounded lines marked with double stitching that runs along the back.

Matteo Nunziati has been able to transfer the DNA of textile manufacturer Rubelli into a design object. This is the premise that has given rise to the Tela chair, whose key design feature lies in the idea of creating the backrest by combining fabric and leather in an original way, as two sides of the same canvas. The structure of the chair is available in solid natural walnut or mocha-tinted ash, while the construction details, such as the joint between the back, legs and armrests, are covered in fabric.