ONE FOR ALL AND ALL FOR ONE: TACCHINI

How to create furniture that responds to the increasing demand for diverse functionality? Commission a diversity of designers. TACCHINI shows how it's done.

By Tacchini Italia and Emma Moore

November 3, 2020 | 11:00 pm CUT

Inspired by the icebergs in the upper reaches of the North Sea, the new Polar Alcove is a high-backed seating system that creates intimate, private spaces and shields its occupants from distractions

More and faster than ever, our interiors are shifting, and the discipline of design with them. With the merging of work, hospitality and home environments, the call is for furniture to answer the functional requirements of a work space and the comforts of a home simultaneously. Its design needs to allow for unique expression while providing the means to both rest and graft. It also needs to be technologically adroit to offer modern functionality while possessing a certain timelessness, longevity being the ultimate mark of sustainability.

The new additions to the Pearson Lloyd-designed Polar range include the Polar Alcove seating system and Float ottomans which come in customisable fabrics and offer integrated charging and USB points

Tacchini's latest collection demonstrates the company's ease at meeting the changes underway while working with numerous designers at once, from Milan-based Studiopepe, to British studio Pearson Lloyd to the 20th-century master Umberto Riva. An ability to marry modernity and traditional artisanship has always been up its sleeve: now an adaptable, multi-functional attitude and aesthetics of enduring appeal headline the list of goals. ‘We are always attentive to social changes and have realised that the rigid division between domestic and contract is disappearing,’ says CEO Giusi Tacchini. ‘Contamination has begun. In fact, one of our key characteristics is transversality.’

‘We are always attentive to social changes and have realised that the rigid division between domestic and contract is disappearing’

‘Tacchini is not a worky brand. it delivers in a quiet way,’ backs up Tom Lloyd of Pearson Lloyd, who are leaders in furniture design for workspaces and have a long relationship with the brand. Their original collection for Tacchini, Polar, is based on ice flows and fractal shapes and patterns. ‘You can sit on the inside of a piece to chat, on the outside it's more solitary. But this is not explicit. It just looks sculptural,’ Lloyd says.

Float ottomans serve as both seats and footstools, and come in a number of sizes and finishes. A Roman travertine top on larger models adds coffee table to the possible functions the piece can fulfil

This year Polar gains a high-backed sofa, Polar Alcove and an ottoman, Float, which integrates technology (power, data points). Polar Alcove was conceived pre-pandemic and designed to provide privacy and protection psychologically – but it also answers the current call for physical shielding too. ‘There's a sense that things have to be of the moment but also last. Timelessness is often criticised as being inert but not with Tacchini. Polar modifies over time so is made to be timeless.’

Now that we are repurposing interior spaces to accommodate all possible interior functions at once, designs really need to be flexible. It works all ways, hospitality spaces are homes from home, but offices too. Offices are more social, while at home, the living room is also an office and Airbnb culture makes every bedroom a prospective hotel room.

The Five to Nine daybed by Studiopepe is timeless in its sculptural form, and made multi-functional by virtue of a linen-upholstered topper mattress that transforms the piece into a guest bed

A standout piece from the collection is a daybed by Studiopepe. A synthesis of memories and modernity characterises the studio's work, so the outlook matches that of Tacchini, as they seek to join a certain timelessness with a contemporary frame of thinking and doing. The piece may recall something from 50 years ago, when daybeds were for Beatniks, puffing on a pipe and thinking out loud in poetic prose. Their revival today sees them multi-tasking as a sculptural focus point, a sofa, a bench, or even a guest bed.

‘There is a search for purity and at the same time the return of classic forms without renouncing the use of sophisticated and long-lasting materials’

‘With Studiopepe, a special partnership has been created, where the aim is to open new scenarios and perspectives with the imagination, while taking inspiration from the past,’ says Tacchini. ‘The products float lightly between the roots of the past and our current identity, towards a dreamed future.’ The 'Five to Nine' daybed has options: In leather it is Bauhausian; in velvet it invites you to linger longer. It comes with a truncated bolster for placement at the short end, or a long back bolster. There’s a concrete side table that can integrate, and a further practical addition of a linen upholstered padded mattress that transforms the piece into a bonafide bed.

Umberto Riva’s A.D.A. Lamp, named for the way the shape of the letters mimic the piece’s archetypal design, is made up of two conical shapes in tinted fibreglass, fused together and lit from within

Tacchini's Edizioni division provides the more decorative small scale but necessary incidentals that complete an all-singing interior. A collection of sculptural ceramics by Studiopepe are joined by a new lamp from Umberto Riva. Ada lamp has an archetypal form, its contours mirroring a classic table light, but it is made from a tinted fibreglass shell and illuminates from within. Simple, practical, poetic and universal, it has the potential to become a future classic.

‘The principle is always that there isn't a single direction, study or precise planning,’ says Tacchini, of the collection, ‘But a search for purity and at the same time the return of classic forms without renouncing the use of sophisticated and long-lasting materials.’ It's a formula that should keep our interiors sustainably equipped for life – all life – under one roof.

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Baruccana, Italy