“Sitting around a camp fire is a rare occasion and that was the starting point for Otto; I wanted to bring this sense of easy conviviality into the home and into our daily routine,” says Kurrein. “I wanted to create an environment for conversation.”
Using 1970s Italian domestic design as a reference point, Otto is produced to exacting standards by blending advanced manufacturing techniques with artisan skills. It’s upholstered with subtle and precise curvatures blending from one to another across the arms and backrest, and features elegantly shaped sand-cast legs. The design is finished in specially made durable natural vegetable tan leathers, coloured and finished by Molinari, which will gain beautiful patinas over time.
As with Kurrein’s earlier work for Molinari, the elegantly executed leather work references the aesthetic beauty of leather sporting equipment. “Historical sports equipment has a familiar, reassuring quality that instantly communicates durability.”
Otto is made with a steel frame, injection moulded back and arms, and high-quality elastic straps. It is upholstered in a mixture of foam, feather and polyester wadding. A feather-filled lumbar support cushion comes with each component. The flexible system can be configured in a number of different ways, and combined with left and right armrests or straight sections. The stand-alone pieces available are an armchair, a straight two-seat sofa and an angled two-seat sofa. All configurations have been calculated so people sitting on them have an equal width of seat and are equidistant from one another.
Lucy Kurrein and Molinari first collaborated in 2016 when they launched the Rondo sofa as part of the Trentino Collaborations feature at that year’s London Design Fair. Based on a boxer’s punch bag, Rondo was widely acclaimed in the press and is now a bestseller for Molinari in seven continents. For both parties, the goal of their collaboration is to create designs that simply get better with age. They advocate the idea that products should be exceptional, precise in all the details and made for life.
