Bouroullec in Milan

The Bouroullec brothers have presented some great new products in Milan this year.

Osso chair - Mattiazzi © studio Bouroullec
Working with Mattiazzi is comparable to working with an organic farm. While being a small, family-owned company that has been manufacturing chairs for others since about forty years, Mattiazzi decided to do less yet better. By using sophisticated CNC set of tools and at the same time a greatly refined manual know-how, Mattiazzi has a hybrid way to consider furniture production. We were particularly interested by the fact that all the equipment is powered by solar energy and that the wood is coming from the surrounding areas to be carefully selected without the use of any chemical treatments. They came back to the basics and this is precisely what piqued our interest and our fascination for the Mattiazzi family's endeavour. As designers, we feel involved in supporting such valiant microstructures that are always on the edge as they try to adjust to a constantly changing market. That said, the Osso chair had to be the illustration of what Mattiazzi is in its roots. We designed an object in plain wood but not in regular plain wood, the quality of the wood literally makes the object, like the best piece of meat would make the refinement of a dish. Our intention was to let the sensuality of the wood material - from oak to maple to ash - express itself. The Osso chair invites to be touched, even caressed as it is extremely sculpted and polished thanks to the use of highly sophisticated digital control equipment. The high-tech assembling system of geometrical wood panels allows a quite singular strength while preserving a design balance of the object.


Piani Lamp - Flos © flos
The Piani collection is made of a flat base and a flat top. The base is either a tray so that objects can be displayed in a triangular beam of light as if they were on stage or in its longer version, a shelve so that more objects can be supported by this hybrid design. Piani comes in plastic as well as in oak wood and basalt stone in the shelving versions so that different sensual experiences are suggested.


Aim Lamp - Flos © flos
The general idea behind the Aim design is to propose a lamp that would offer an infinite variety of adjustments to meet one's lighting needs. We came up with a proposal of a new typology of lamp that naturally positions itself in the space - like a plant would do - thanks to the long cables which facilitate the orientation and the height of the light freely. This object in ABS is the industrial version of the Lianes that we presented at the kreo Gallery, Paris in 2010.


Baguettes chair - Magis © studio Bouroullec
With Baguettes, our intention was to design a chair that would be brought down to its minimum, using the least quantity of material and assembling items. The ply wood seat and back parts of the chair are supported by four very thin sticks in solid wood which are maintained together by a structure in injected aluminium that is almost invisible. The back of the chair, like the blade of a knife, subtly comes into the main frame while guaranteeing high support resistance. As the Baguette table that we designed for Magis in 2010, we wanted this chair to be as light as possible, to almost float in the space as if it would stay on its feet by magic.


Oiseau - Vitra © studio Bouroullec