De Castelli - Wave bench

With its essential shapes and gentle, sinuous sense of movement, Wave suggests a renewed, more conscious focus on the ritual of arriving home. The project reinterprets a quintessential piece Asian furniture: the shoe bench. Its humble function as a furnishing complement is ennobled and transformed into a welcoming element, suitable for gracing even the most sophisticated of interiors.

The micro architecture, designed with simple, flowing forms, is produced using solid natural copper which plays with curves, solids and voids. The vertical wave-shaped wall in perforated copper lends lightness to the volume and adds a touch of refinement to the sculptural form, accompanying those who enter; the wave form serves to underline the presence of the “pocket emptier” plate, inviting us to empty our pockets as we come home.

The upper surface provides ample space to sit down while removing clothing, while the base provides storage space for bags and shoes. Natural copper, free of surface treatment, becomes a living material which changes over time and acquires a range of hews caused by differing rates of oxidation: it remains brighter in areas where there is more frequent contact, thus emphasising the routines of those who use it every day.

Lanzavecchia + Wai

Lanzavecchia + Wai is a creative collaboration between Francesca Lanzavecchia (Pavia, 1983) and HunnWai (London, 1980). For them, the designer is both a researcher, engineer, craftsman and storyteller. Their collaboration began at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, Holland, under the supervision of Gijs Bakker, co-founder of Droog Design. Lanzavecchia focuses his attention on the relationships that objects establish or can establish with the body and soul of man, with an attentive look to the future.

Wai is fascinated by the impact and fusion of materials, shapes and meanings. Design projects are for them research trips characterized by the investigation and selective use of different applications of design to be taken care of, intersect and feed within concepts and products that suggest possibilities and inspire new perspectives. The firm is based in Pavia and Singapore and was officially established in 2009. Their projects include products and limited editions for brands such as Cappellini, De Castelli, gallotti&radice, Bosa, Nodus, Mirage and special projects for brands and museums such as La Triennale di Milano, MAXXI, Alcantara, Samsonite, Antolini, Tod'sAgustaWestland. During these years they have received several awards including the prestigious Elle Décor International Design Award 2014 in the category "Young Designer Talent of the Year".

De Castelli

De Castelli has made metal its language and has managed over time to build a wide range of furnishing accessories, lighting points but above all metal upholstery. Creations that at first glance could be unrelated to each other, and that instead are brought together by the presence of metal, a noble and elegant material taking on the most varied forms. De Castelli was founded in 2003, but its foundation is based on the experience of four generations of ironworking masters. It overcomes the classical conception of metal, understood as a "cold" material and relegated to the margins of design, and begins to produce objects in series, but at the same time unique, as the result of a cultural path that is renewed each time in an unrepeatable way. The continuous rise of De Castelli is witnessed by the many partnerships that the Italian company has established with the most renowned brands on the international scene. This was the collaboration with Maserati at the 89th Geneva Motor show, for which De Castelli lined the interior panels of the Quattroporte SQ4 Granlusso. For De Castelli, metal plays a dual role. Furnishing, first of all, but at the same time interprets the architecture, the styles, the new trends.