B & B ITALIA TUFTY
TIME SOFA DESIGN BY PATRICIA URQUIOLA
The Tufty-Time sofa
series, one of B&B Italia’s most consolidated successes, finds effective
answers to the themes of modularity, comfort and removable covers. The
Tufty-Time modular system starts with an ottoman as the basic piece, which is
then accompanied by central, corner and terminal elements with a low or high
armrest. The elements are used to invent traditional sofas, sofas with chaise
longue, corner sofas and island elements that provide a 360° seating solution.
Cosy in its more accentuated depth, Tufty-Time becomes a meeting place, a
welcoming refuge where people can just relax. With its fabric or leather
upholstery, Tufty-Time offers
a more contemporary take on the traditional Chesterfield and capitonné sofas,
with a freer and more informal lifestyle.
https://www.bebitalia.com/en-us/en-us-tufty-time-divani.html
B & B ITALIA
B&B Italia has been
an international leader in the field of contemporary furnishings since
1966. Since then, its collection has progressively acquired new
products that are acknowledged and recognised worldwide, to fill the ranks
alongside evergreen products like Serie Up, Le Bambole and Diesis, now
seen as icons of design history. Through its product range, B&B Italia
has shown that it can offer a meaningful contribution to the culture of
design by perceiving and anticipating trends and responding to changing
tastes and living needs.
Antonio Citterio,
Patricia Urquiola, Naoto Fukasawa, Gaetano Pesce, Studio Kairos, Paolo
Piva, Mario Bellini, Jeffrey Bernett, Zaha Hadid and many others are
the winning team that, along with the company’s internal Research and
Development Centre, has contributed to the international success of
B&B Italia.
The vocation to
innovation and technological experimentation in addition to aesthetics
research, are the strenghts and strategic elements for the
company’s development policy. In fact, B&B Italia was the first
company in the world to perfect the technique of cold polyurethane foam
mouldings, which radically changed the way upholstered furnishings were
built. These strategic elements has brought about many awards both in
Italy and abroad, among them four “Compasso d’Oro” awards.
TUFTY TIME 20
Tufty-Time 20 represents
the contemporary evolution of Tufty-Time, the iconic sofa system designed by
Patricia Urquiola in 2005. Twenty years after its launch, the system has been
reinterpreted while maintaining the essential characteristics that have made it
a great success, including modularity, enveloping comfort and compositional
flexibility. The volumes, padding and seat height have been redesigned to offer
even greater comfort, while the introduction of a curved module expands the
system's potential, giving rise to even more fluid and convivial
configurations, ideal for both residential and contract spaces. Particular
attention has been paid to the theme of circularity. Tufty-Time 20 is in fact
fully disassemblable, ensuring that all the components can be given a second
life at the end of the product's life cycle.
https://www.bebitalia.com/en-us/en-tufty-time-20-divani.html
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STUDIO
URQUIOLA
Studio Urquiola was
founded in 2001 by Patricia Urquiola and her partner, Alberto Zontone, and it
operates in the fields of Industrial Product Design, Architecture (hotels,
retail spaces, residences, exhibitions and installations), Art Direction and
Strategy consulting.
PATRICIA
URQUIOLA, 1961
Originally from Oviedo,
Spain, Patricia Urquiola studied architecture and design at the Universidad
Politécnica de Madrid and completed her studies at the Politecnico di Milano
where she graduated under the mentorship of Achille Castiglioni. Her career
highlights include: Assistant lecturer to Achille Castiglioni and Eugenio
Bettinelli in Milan and Paris, responsible for the new product development office
of De Padova, working with Vico Magistretti. In 1996 she became head of the
Lissoni Associati design group.
WORK AND CLIENTS
Patricia Urquiola starts
each project by building an empathic connection with the user that will
eventually interact with her designs, something she learned from Achille
Castiglioni, establishing the “fundamental element” as he used to call, the
basis of each project which always keeps her on track and accompanies her whole
design process: thinking spaces or objects in relation to people. Pushing the
limits of research and technology, Patricia Urquiola constantly experiments and
dares to move towards better design and architecture, following her earlier
mentors’ teachings such as Vico Magistretti and Maddalena de Padova. Used to confront
complex processes, working with scales from micro to macro, she works with the
available technology to go beyond the limits of what has been already
experimented.
Studio Urquiola is
frequently asked to design not only objects and architectures but also to think
about the future of mobility, workplace and production cycles. Creating links
between craftsmanship and industrial research, the heritage together with
innovation and technology, Patricia Urquiola also drives companies she works
with to upcycle once-waste material and tries to re-image entire processes
leading them to change, evolution and innovation.
Patricia Urquiola
believes in an original design point of view merging humanistic, technological
and social approaches. Her design thinking is the intersection of challenges
and breaking prejudices, finding unexpected connections between the familiar
and the unexplored.
Patricia Urquiola has
been the Creative Director of Cassina since 2015 and works with important
Italian and international design companies, including Agape, Alessi,
Axor-Hansgrohe, B&B Italia, Baccarat, Boffi, Budri, De Padova, Driade,
Coedition, Ferragamo, Flos, Gan, Georg Jensen, Glas Italia, Haworth, Kartell,
Kettal, Kvadrat, Listone Giordano, Louis Vuitton, Molteni, Moroso, Mutina,
Rosenthal and Verywood…
Amongst her latest
projects in architecture are Il Sereno Hotel in Como, the Room Mate Giulia
Hotel in Milan, the SD96 yacht for Sanlorenzo, Marienturm and Marienforum
towers in Frankfurt, the spa of the Four Seasons Hotel Milan, The Jewellery
Museum in Vicenza, the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Barcelona, Das Stue Hotel in
Berlin; showrooms and installations for Gianvito Rossi, BMW, Cassina, Missoni,
Moroso, Molteni, Officine Panerai, H&M, Santoni and the general concept of
Pitti Immagine in Florence…
Patricia Urquiola is part
of the advisory board of the Politecnico of Milan and the Triennale Milano
Museum. She taught the Master’s Degree in Interior Design at the Domus Academy
in Milan (2013-2015) and has given lectures at Harvard University, Michigan
University, Shenkar School of Engineering and Design in Israel, at the Alvar
Aalto Academy in Finland, at the State University and Bocconi University in
Milan. She has also given talks at countless cultural events, such as Design Shanghai,
Design Week in Istanbul, the Expressive Design conference at the Vitra Design
Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany, the Bloomberg Design Conference in San
Francisco, Festarch Perugia, the Mind Festival in Sarzana and the Mantova
Literature Festival, among other events in Italy. She was an ambassador of the
Milan Expo in 2015.
EXHIBITIONS
Patricia Urquiola’s work
is exhibited in many art and design museums across the world, including the
MoMA in New York, the Decorative Arts Museum in Paris, the Design Museum in
Monaco, the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, the Victoria & Albert
Museum in London, the Design Museum in Zurich, the Stedelijk Museum of modern
and contemporary art in Amsterdam and the Philadelphia Art Museum.
At Madrid Design
Festival, earlier 2020, an exhibition entitled “Patricia Urquiola. Nature Morte
Vivante” opened to public, focusing on the work at different stages of her
career. The exhibition was laid out in a non-chronological way around five
pillars exploring recurrent themes of Patricia Urquiola’s work and mindset.
“Exploring the mind of
Patricia Urquiola offers many surprises, among them, discovering the unexpected
themes that feed her voracious curiosity: virtual reality, economy, politics,
artificial intelligence, the theory of color, the Anthropocene, robotics,
ecology and sustainability, gender issues, man and machines, and so on. They
are the foundation of an entire way of thinking that is imperative to the
responsibility and coherence of a person that carefully introduces each new
object of her creation into this agonizing and ill-treated planet. Patricia
Urquiola´s career reveals a “rhizomatic” attitude towards projects, a type of
mindset that is also her work method. Thus, all the elements involved have the
same importance and influence each other horizontally, without imposing
hierarchies.” explains Ana Dominguez Siemens, the curator of the
exhibition.
PRIZES AND AWARDS
She has won several
international prizes and awards including the Medalla de Oro al Mérito en las
Bellas Artes (Gold Medal in Fine Arts) awarded by the Spanish Government; Order
of Isabella the Catholic, awarded by His Majesty The King of Spain Juan Carlos
I; “Designer of the decade” for two German magazines, Home and Häuser,
“Designer of the Year” for Wallpaper, Ad Spain, Elle Decor International and
Architektur und Wohnen Magazine. She was the Ambassador of the Milan Expo in
2015. She was nominated Art Director of Cassina in September 2015.
Studio Urquiola
has now a team of around
70, composed of 43 architects and interior designers; 15 product designers,
textile designers and model makers; 12 at financial, administration, PR &
press department. 18 nationalities are represented and 15 foreign languages are
spoken, a very international community with designers and architects
collaborating in the most interrelated possible way.
https://patriciaurquiola.com/studio
You may click below links
to reach Patricia Urquiola’s designs of B & B Italia Bend Sofa,
and Design Lana Mangas from My Magical Attic past news.
https://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com/2013/10/b-b-italia-bend-sofa-design-by-patricia.html
https://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com/2013/04/patricia-urquiola-s-design-lana-mangas.html
