For this year’s edition of Milan Design Week, Italian furniture manufacturer Gufram and New York-based design practice Snarkitecture have unveiled their latest collaboration: the Sculpted Series, a collection of five domestic sculptures that blur the line between art and furniture. Although the collection appears to be hard and durable, as furniture is typically designed to be, they are surprisingly soft, composed of foam that’s been treated with a special paint developed by Gufram over 50 years ago.
The Sculpted Series includes a bookshelf, a bar cabinet, an armchair, a coffee table, and a low table. Handmade by Gufram’s skilled artisans, each piece starts out as a block of polyurethane foam, a material that visually replicates a concrete texture. After being sculpted, they are coated with Guflac® Ultra which makes each piece durable and weather-resistant while maintaining the polyurethane foam’s elasticity and softness. The collection, available only in black or white, rethinks what furniture “should” look like in a domestic space.
The Sculpted Series will be on view at Capsule Plaza during Milan Design Week from April 17-23, 2023.
