Piana Outdoor Collection

Mother nature is a beautifully complex and incredibly marvellous wonder that maintains the necessary balance to sustain life on our planet. Finely tuned to ensure life can coexist from the coldest Arctic’s to the warmest deserts, nature is a spectacular playground. As we come to understand more and more the delicate ecosystem of our planet, our attention re-aligns to working together with mother nature for sustainable pathways forward as global citizens of Earth.

Spawned from a desire to foster environmentally responsible design more deeply, our designer Franco, has set about exploring high-performing materials that leave a softer environmental footprint. Considering not only sustainable furniture materials but also the impact these materials have on our craftspeople. Increasingly aware of the detrimental effects of toxins on makers, Franco strived to work with a material that harnessed a luxurious smooth silky touch, solid feel, and classic appeal without the nasty health implications. Layered with this was a conscious decision to ensure the material was environmentally credited globally to move towards sustainable furniture design.

Franco’s newest collection delivers authentic Australian design and sustainable furniture. Harnessing a material not commonly used elsewhere in the Australian furniture design industry, his Piana collection is crafted from Corian®.

Corian® is completely Red List free, meaning it contains no nasty chemicals. Red list chemicals are commonly used chemicals found in materials that pollute the environment, bio-accumulate up the food chain until they reach toxic concentrations, and/or are harmful to construction and factory workers. Corian® provides complete transparency to its chemical composition via the third party Declare program, best described as an ingredients label for building products, making it one of the ideal eco-friendly furniture materials to work with.

Coupled with this is Corian’s GreenGuard certification which is a globally recognised third-party certification that independently verifies low VOC levels.  VOC (volatile organic compounds) are airborne chemicals commonly found in the air we breathe in homes, offices and other indoor spaces. These chemicals are found in building materials, furnishings, cleaning and personal care products. It’s widely proven that VOC levels are at least twice as high, if not far more, in indoor spaces versus outdoors. Whilst it seems obvious to create environmentally safe furniture, this is so often overlooked with mass-produced cost-driven furniture.

It isn’t the choice of material alone that Franco focused on for his latest furniture collection, but equally the manufacturing processes as well.

Deliberate consideration during the design process was granted to minimise the layering of energy and consumption of resources needed during fabrication. Understanding the strengths and limitations of working with 12mm thick Corian® has become inherent knowledge for Franco now with more than a decade of experience designing with the material.  Retaining the 12mm thick Corian® in its purest form resulted in reducing the energy footprint required and distilling the consumption of resources down to the barest possible. There is great flexibility in the attributes of Corian® to thermo mould and create forms of infinite thickness and mass, however, this does, in turn, add additional energy consumption in doing so.  Subsequently, the design process centred on creating a statement furniture collection within the confines of 12mm thick Corian® to leave a softer environmental imprint.

Aesthetically light and balanced, Franco’s design language is obvious in the Piana collection with the strong architectural lines of the legs and visually thin top hovering proportionally above. Minimalist, restrained and pure in form is often the hardest to design with no margin for error and nowhere to hide. The Piana collection sits softly in a space, designed to work back with hero pieces in a home such as a sofa, dining table or bed, to complement the hero pieces but not overpower. Beautiful in their own right to be admired for their form and gracefulness without competing for attention but adding to the layers of a home exuding a sense of refined luxury.

So pleased to welcome our Piana collection to the world and your home. We encourage you to visit our Adelaide and Melbourne showrooms to experience your future heirlooms in person.

Melbourne showroom

259 Swan Street, Richmond, Victoria 3121

Adelaide showroom

442 Pulteney Street, Adelaide, South Australia 5000