Dezeen Showroom: Italian furniture brand Cassina has reissued the Carlotta armchair, designed by husband-wife duo Afra and Tobia Scarpa in 1967, for its outdoor collection.
Tobia Scarpa, who has worked alone since the death of his wife in 2011, collaborated with Cassina to reimagine the Carlotta armchair in durable, weather-resistant materials.
The armchair was originally designed in 1967
The revamped design features a low-slung teak frame and cushions padded with recycled PET fibre.
"Carlotta has an informal, carefree soul with an ample and welcoming seat," Cassina explained.
Woven cords support Carlotta's backrest
Woven cords are threaded into a linear pattern across the chair's backrest, functioning as both support and subtle decoration.
Carlotta is available in a range of outdoor fabrics from Cassina's collection, which are able to withstand a variety of weather conditions.
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Architecture studio Wood Marsh has completed a clubhouse facility for a golf course in Point Lonsdale, Australia, featuring blade-like concrete walls that emerge above the surrounding coastal dunes.
The Lonsdale Links golf club is located on the Bellarine Peninsula south of Melbourne, where its 18-hole links course is integrated among sand dunes, salt marshes and wetlands on the edge of Lake Victoria.
Top: Lonsdale Links golf clubhouse is located on a hilltop. Above: the building has a concrete exterior
The clubhouse designed by local office Wood Marsh is positioned on the crest of a hill where it can be experienced from different sight lines, emerging above the trees as golfers navigate the course.
The building responds to the coastal climate by hunkering down into the site. Its curved blade walls are finished in a textured render that emphasises its robust construction and connection to the earth.
"Like ancient ruins, the softened contours of the building are meant to be embedded in the landscape, as though it has been there for a long time and will be for years to come," claimed Wood Marsh director Roger Wood.
Walls protrude from rounded volumes
Materials used across the building's exterior feature raw, weathered finishes that are appropriate to the coastal setting. The brown rendered walls and dark wood are complemented by bronze glazing that reflects the evening light.
The textured walls and dark-stained laminated structural elements that radiate outwards from the building's spine help to accentuate its non-rectilinear form.
A zinc roof extends over the building
Two of the curving walls frame the entrance to the clubhouse and hide the majority of the building's mass from view on the approach.
A dish-shaped zinc roof extends over the threshold, which is flanked by four circular orange lights.
"The curving canopy of the entry has a funnelling effect," Wood added. "Likewise, the substantial walls curve from either side towards the front doors. Where the directionality of the curving walls meets the belly of the canopy the building effectively compresses to draw in visitors."
Inside, a circular vestibule connects with a timber-lined corridor that leads guests toward the restaurant and golfers' lounge.
These spaces wrap around the northern and western sides of the building, providing views across the lake, the golf course and the landscape through full-height windows.
Large windows frame views across the golf course
At the opposite end of the corridor from the entrance is a wall made from stacked dry stones. The monolithic element incorporates a fireplace on its reverse side that forms a focal point for the club lounge.
Laminated timber beams and folded acoustic ceiling panels radiate out from the centrally positioned stone wall, drawing the eye out towards the natural surroundings.
Large stone walls mark diferent zones
The lounge and restaurant feature a vibrant green carpet with curved edges that playfully evokes the golf course's fairways.
Marble surfaces used for the bar counter and surfaces in the bathrooms add a further natural element to the refined material palette.
Green carpet resembles the course fairways
Roger Wood and Randal Marsh established their practice in 1983, and have maintained a consistent focus on creating buildings with a sculptural quality that play on the combination of solidity and transparency while utilising limited material palettes.
Last week's Milan design week offered a calmer, more meaningful experience reminiscent of the event's early editions, according to the designers and exhibitors taking part.
"It's completely different to the other editions," designer Luca Nichetto told Dezeen. "It's totally another rhythm. I prefer it this way because you can actually speak more deeply."
"There's not that much going on, so you have the actual possibility to see a lot of things," agreed Johannes Carlström of Note Design Studio.
Salone del Mobile (above) and the surrounding design festival (top image) took place in September this year
The Salone del Mobile furniture fair, which is the lynchpin of the citywide design festival, was pared down this year after being moved from April to September for the first time in more than three decades due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Although participants reported missing international clients and visitors, attendees said the event's manageable size gave them more time to engage with both projects and people.
"I think it's the best year to be here because there are less events and less is better in general," added Galerie Philia founder Ygaël Attali. "It's a little bit more authentic than usual."
Downsized fair beneficial for smaller brands
Salone del Mobile, the biggest furniture show in the world, was rebranded as "Supersalone" for its September edition and reduced to a fifth of the size, hosting only 464 exhibitors compared to the 2,418 that participated in the event's last iteration in April 2019.
"Two years ago, at the last Salone, it was such an overkill of presentation and things and people," said Dutch designer Stefan Scholten. "So I think it's good that there's been a level of reconsidering."
Meanwhile, the independent fuorisalone programme that took place throughout the city alongside the furniture fair hosted a modest roster of 594 events, less than half the size of its 2019 line-up.
The scale reminded designers and exhibitors of the intimacy of early editions of the week, before it grew into a bloated festival drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Federica Sala curated a fuorisalone exhibition of candle holders
"I remember when I came here for the first time in 1999 to exhibit at Salone," Carlström added. "And this event has more in common with that period than with the previous show."
Salone's more compact size has already proven beneficial for lesser-known brands, Sala argued, as they were able to stand out among a smaller field of competitors.
"I've been speaking with some little brands and they were happy because they actually made sales," she said. "It was more complicated before if you had a little booth and you were squeezed in between giants."
Lack of overseas visitors
However, due to ongoing travel restrictions, the downsized trade fair was also less diverse than usual. Visitors to the Salone fell dramatically from a record 386,000 people in 2019 to around 60,000.
Only 30 per cent of these people and 16 per cent of exhibitors hailed from countries other than Italy, confirming organisers' expectations that overseas visitor numbers would be far lower this year.
"We miss our American and Asian clients," said Scholten, who took Milan design week as an occasion to exhibit his first solo project after disbanding Scholten & Baijings.
"I met a couple of Japanese clients but they said it was really a lot of hassle to come. You can imagine a lot of people skipped it and are waiting until April."
Ygaël Attali's Galerie Philia presented furniture created by emerging Italian designers
"It's a shame because I love the cross-pollination. Even though it's nice that the fair is small, I still hope for it to be big enough for people from everywhere to enjoy it rather than just being Eurocentric."
The more local nature of the event was a blessing for some venues. The Triennale Milano museum reported higher visitor figures than in 2019, with 57,000 visitors.
Salone forms part of Italian coronavirus recovery
Organisers of the Salone del Mobile said they were pleasantly surprised by the success of the fair, which almost didn't take place at all following infighting and resistance from key brands earlier this year.
"We are closing this edition of the Salone del Mobile.Milano with great satisfaction and huge emotion," said Salone del Mobile president Maria Porro. "We did it."
The staging of the fair, together with Milan's fashion week and the Grand Prix at Monza on Sunday, was seen as a key symbol of Italy's reopening for business after the traumas of the pandemic.
"It was important to take that first but decisive step, to make our presence felt and send a signal to the country as a whole," said Porro as the Salone del Mobile announced it will return to its usual April slot next year. Its landmark 60th edition will take place from 5 to 10 April 2022.
Increased demand for smaller events
But many designers and brands hope there will not be a return to the huge fairs of recent years.
"I asked some of my clients if they're coming to Milan and they said they prefer to go to Copenhagen," said Nichetto, referring to the compact 3 Days of Design festival in the Danish capital, which follows on the heels of Milan and last year featured just 167 brands.
"3 Days of Design is small, it's exactly what Milan was in the 90s," he said. "So you see people enjoying the city, not stressed to run from one event to another and really enjoying the installations and the projects."
Bethan Laura Wood exhibited a solo show at Nilufar Gallery
"This is an opportunity to reassess whether we need to do so big, so fast, every year," said Wood.
"It could give people the courage to say: I will do something really interesting but every two years. And then as long as everybody's rhythm is set differently, then there may be more space for different people's work to breathe."
Milan design week took place from 4 to 10 September in venues across the city, with Salone del Mobile set in the Fiera Milano exhibition centre from 5 September onwards.
See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
Our Redesign the World competition with Epic Games closes for entries at midnight tomorrow! Here is a recap of the talks and workshops we have run to provide some last-minute inspiration and tips for how to enter.
Redesign the World is the ultimate design competition, which calls for radical new ideas to rethink planet Earth.
The competition is free to enter for people over the age of 18 and has total prize money of £15,000, but there is not much time left to take part! The competition closes for entries at midnight on 15 September 2021.
Click here to find out more and enter the competition or read on for a recap of the series of online talks and workshops we have been running to explain the competition and help participants with their entries.
We hosted an online workshop that provided advice on how to use Twinmotion
Participants will need to use architectural visualisation tool Twinmotion to enter the competition.
Powered by Unreal Engine, the game engine developed by Epic Games, Twinmotion enables architects and designers to quickly and easily create high-quality images, panoramas, fly-throughs and animations of products, buildings, cities and even entire landscapes in real-time.
In this workshop, Sam Anderson, a technical marketing manager at Epic Games, gave a 30-minute practical tutorial on how to use the software and shared some tips and tricks for entering the competition.
We explored how game design and architectural visualisation are merging in this talk
This talk explored how access to new digital technology such as Twinmotion is transforming the way that architects work and communicate their projects.
Speakers including Belinda Ercan, Twinmotion product marketing manager at Epic Games, Murray Levinson, partner at architecture practice Squire & Partners, Adam Laskey, director of architecture studio Marraum, and Luke Pearson and Sandra Youkhana, co-founders of You+Pea, discussed how video game design and architectural visualisation are merging, and what the future holds for the industry.
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Speakers discussed why we need radical proposals to rethink the planet in our final talk in the series
Our final talk in the series brought together experts with backgrounds in architecture, film, science and technology to explore why architects and designers are increasingly looking to remodel the world.
Speakers including Belinda Ercan from Epic Games and geographer and environmental social scientist Holly Jean Buck discussed why we need radical proposals to rethink the planet.
Speculative architect Liam Young presented his short film called Planet City, in which he proposes the entire population of the earth could be housed in a giant sustainable metropolis, while production designer Alex McDowell showcased Planet Junk, a project that invites university students to imagine a future world that is built on the detritus of our current planet.
Dezeen Showroom: designed by Federico Peri for CTO Lighting, the Modulo lighting collection is characterised by its interplay of opal and smoky textured glass.
The range includes a chandelier, pendant and wall light, all made up of the same oblong glass modules arranged into linear lighting sculptures and completed with architectural metalwork.
The Modulo lighting collection is built on modules of smoked glass
Their shapes were inspired by Peri's childhood memories of playing in his grandfather's metalwork factory in Italy, building objects from metal parts that reminded him of the model construction system Meccano.
In the Modulo collection, these metal parts are reimagined as panes of smoked glass, each one unique in its imperfections and subtly tinted.
Fixed to these base plates are smooth opal glass domes containing dimmable LED lighting elements.
A chandelier features in the collection along with a pendant and wall light
The Modulo chandelier features 11 such domes suspended on a grid structure while the pendant can be hung horizontally or vertically, either solo or combined into larger constellations.
The wall light features an adaptable design, topped with one to three domes apiece.
The brass metalwork comes in either a satin brass or bronze finish.
About Dezeen Showroom:Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen's huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.
Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.
