Presented
at the 2013 Now! Design à vivre in Paris, the Nuvola armchair by Noé Duchaufour
Lawrance is an outdoor seat which derives from the comfortable features offered
by its predecessor Calla (which the French designer created in 2010). Both are
inspired by organic shapes. “Nothing moves me as much as the contemplation of
nature and the emotion that it creates in me,” says the designer. “It’s a sort
of compensation for the magnitude and richness of information which floods my
setting. I orientate myself, through reaction, towards that which comes closest
to structures in the natural world, to its forms, to its power, to the colors
and the light which fluctuates to a spontaneous rhythm. I’ve always been bound
to the concept of transcribing, in all my projects, the emotions and the
organic ties that connect us to the environment. From this awareness the Derby armchair
for Zanotta was born, and along the same lines, and in a completely natural
way, the Calla armchair. It is with the same confidence (and naturalness) that
with Zanotta we decided to reduce the confines between the interior and the
exterior of a house, extending the fluid movement of these two successful chair
projects to our latest outdoor project, Nuvola. The stylistic reappraisal of
the curved body shell made way for an outdoor chair shape that is very
comfortable, despite not having padding or springing.” It’s precisely from the
challenge of attaining high level of comfort without padding that Nuvola’s
strong point was created. “Rotational molding is a consolidated technique in
outdoor furniture which makes it resistant, lightweight and easy to produce on
a large scale. It’s a way of creating pieces that can be used inside the house
as well as outside. What really took a lot of time and effort in the designing
of Nuvola was the perception of the chair in relation to its ergonomic
structure. Let me explain: how do you make a chair as desirable and elegant as
Calla in a material that is rigid or resistant? Calla implicated a whole series
of stitching and assembly of different materials, some of which were soft and
sprung (which was the same for Derby). With Nuvola, there wasn’t any of this.
The solution was to replicate Calla but with a rigid shell, which meant that at
Zanotta we were creating a completely innovative and different type of seat.
The organic and natural inspiration remained, but the systemic study and
production process are completely changed. Nuvola is more agile, deeper and
lower; the shape is more ergonomic: it’s as if comfort comes from the form
itself and not the material. Also from an esthetic point of view I wanted,
along with the Zanotta technical office, to devise a greater sensuality of
line: the armchair had to be comfortable and seductive. And since this material
doesn’t tolerate errors, concentration on shape and proportion was maximum.”
