Timothy Alouani-Roby: Can you tell me about the collection you have here with Roche Bobois as part of Milan Design Week please?
Stephen Burks: The collection is called Catalina, and here we’re beginning with an idea — not a form, but a form informed by an idea. What the chair is about, what the whole collection is about, is the notion of extreme visual comfort. So, without even sitting or touching, we wanted people to be able to look at the chair and understand that it’s generous, that it’s welcoming, that there’s this kind of elegant, almost classical line, and that it’s innovative. And by far, this is the most comfortable outdoor chair you’ll ever sit in!
Here, the innovation is bending a 40-millimetre stainless steel tube. It’s quite robust, but also very, very soft and a little bit playful. The investment is a chair that will last forever, and the Roche Bobois difference, obviously, is the comfort and the quality.
This little bit of tailoring, where the arm rest is actually bending or curving and laying on top of the tubing, is all done by hand. And it can only obviously be done here in Italy. The appearance [of the whole frame] is a single line that begins with the swag leg and continues around the back and drapes to accommodate the body.
What about the tables?
The table collection has this beautiful ceramic top, which is modelled not only in colour, but also in surface. So, you feel that kind of difference in terms of the texture and the touch. And once again, we have the swag leg detail. Here, we’re bending a 50-millimetre tube, but [there is] no visible stress or anything like that. You have the sense, once again, that it’s continuous.
Related: Michael Drescher’s Milan diary
Moving on to the dining chairs…
Once again, the comfort and the visual comfort — it’s what this collection’s about. It is almost like a tulip, in a sense.
The fabrication and the concept is very consistent [with the rest of the collection]. But here we’re dealing with a smaller tube, of course. And then there’s the sofa, which expands the idea into seating for a larger group. It looks like it’s already been lived in, and so it’s inviting you in a way that’s very familiar.
You’ve had a relationship with Roche Bobois for more than a decade, but when did your work on this particular collection start?
You know, it’s hard to say because we began thinking about it as a next step in the evolution. We did the first outdoor collection. I’m the first American designer here, and so as the next step in terms of evolution of outdoor, this is really about bringing the indoor comfort and quality of Roche Bobois outside. I guess we worked almost two years, but a lot of it happens in the final year. We actually lived in Paris last fall, putting final touches on things.
Do you have any particular favourite details?
It’s really this moment where the arm rest just gently rests on the slope… it just falls perfectly. Yeah, yeah. It falls perfectly, where you want to be.
There’s a lot about multiculturalism and respecting a kind of dialogue across different cultural boundaries in your practice, and obviously Milan Design Week is a chance for people to come from all over the world. What are your thoughts on how important it is for everyone to come together internationally like this?
I think the industry as a whole needs these moments. I mean, I think every industry in a sense needs to kind of bring the community and the players together. We’re all here to celebrate design as a language, design as a form of expression that other means of expression cannot really achieve.
When we think about the role of furniture, it’s just about bringing people together. It’s really supporting life. And maybe we do a little too much toasting and celebrating for inanimate objects, but really I think what we’re here to celebrate with Catalina is the concept of bringing together people outdoor in the most comfortable way possible.
