For Every Place: Edra’s classic sofas venture outdoors

Founded in 1987, the Tuscan brand Edra has since become synonymous with archetypally chic and universal Italian interior design; amalgamating tradition, technology, superlative craftsmanship and quality materials to create products as innovative as they are timeless.

The company’s Standard, On the Rocks and Sherazade sofas – created by the visionary Milanese designer Francesco Binfaré, a close collaborator with the brand since 1992 – have long been stalwarts of the Edra inventory. This year, they’ve entered a process of reinvention. For the 2024 edition of Milan’s Salone del Mobile fair, the alfresco courtyard at Edra’s gilded Palazzo Durini home – a resplendently ornate, 17th-century palace designed by the lauded Lombardian architect Ricchini, the ground floor of which houses Edra’s permanent showroom – played host to a new show, ‘Every Place’.

The presentation saw a canny, alfresco overhauling of the classic sofa designs – utilising a newly-developed yarn (made with 100% PET sourced from recycled plastic bottles, and created exclusively for the brand) to render them suitable for indoor and now, crucially, outdoor contexts.

A refresher on the pieces. Standard is a soft, sinuous sofa design with a host of mix-and-match modular elements – each defined by the brand as variously ‘regular’, ‘irregular’ or ‘deep’ – and boasts an innovative selling point in its freely adjustable ‘smart’ cushion. This can be applied as an arm- or back-rest, and raised or lowered with total flexibility and a minimum of pressure; allowing for linear, angular and free-flowing configurations of the sofa depending on the user’s mood or needs (reading a book, focusing on a tablet screen, or simply reclining in comfort, say). It’s a genuinely inspired piece of seating design from Binfaré. 

On the Rocks, meanwhile, consists of four soft and irregularly shaped modules (three polygons and a quadrilateral) that can again be configured into a bespoke shape. This is developed further with the gently undulating backrests, which can be moved around the sofa and are attached to the base via rubber discs. The designs were moulded by hand in Gellyfoam; their rounded profiles as characterfully cosy as they are low-slung and cultivated.

Finally, Sherazade is, on first sight, the most rigidly geometric of the three – but the rectangular block base offers a true panoply of possible forms. It’s a blank canvas of a design; the movable pillows and supports allow for anything from a formal sofa set-up to something truly avant garde (or, by eschewing the pillows completely, a minimalist bed).

So far, so familiar. But where Edra’s new presentation gains ground is in taking these indoor classics outside. The ‘Every Place’ collection’s groundbreaking new textile is lightfast (essential with long-term exposure to continental sunshine), fire-retardant and highly durable, making it perfect for use around swimming pools and on boats – all bolstered by the already anti-mould and breathable materials from which the sofas are created.

The PET construction affords some neat eco credentials – an integral mindset in our increasingly resource-depleted world – and it’s available in a host of colours, for full aesthetic expression: whether monochromatic black or white, to neutral sand and pearl, and more organic hues redolent of the natural world, such as moss, light blue and cobalt.

Edra has long exuded an exemplary, Italianate elegance unsurpassed in over 30 years. By giving these iconic sofas a new life in the Palazzo Durini’s idyllic courtyard during Salone, the brand brought a fresh level of function and adaptability to a trio already noted for their hitherto unprecedented levels of customisability. It’s just another example of Edra’s discerning design nous.

© Architonic

Head to the Architonic Magazine for more insights on the latest products, trends and practices in architecture and design.