In summer 2020, five new products and a new design collaboration launched through an online event, entitled Tales From Strange Times, that combined illustration, animation, photography, and video.
Our collaboration with award-winning Lisbon-based architect Manuel Aires Mateus launched with the introduction of the first product of the collection, Table One.
Celebrating the 7th anniversary of the launch of the first Solo product, a range of new storage options were added to Neri&Hu’s Solo Series. A modular system for Sofa Eight also made its debut.
Manuel Aires Mateus
Manuel Aires Mateus is a Portuguese architect whose projects explore time, memory, and the physical and cultural worlds. He embraces honest materiality and shared memories and experiences.
He has received numerous prestigious awards including the Valmor, Ecola, FAD, and the Pessoa Prize, and teaches at some of the world’s top universities including Harvard.
Aires Mateus’ approach to his furniture collection is in line with his approach to his architectural projects:
“Our central point in all of the projects is the way that people are going to live. It’s always about this idea of how people could feel in these spaces more than, let’s say, image. So it’s also the way you touch, the colour, the smell, the memories that you can achieve and the common memories that we all have about this material,” Manuel Aires Mateus.
Select Manuel Aires Mateus projects feature in our look books, including Casa No Tempo, Santa Clara 1728, and Manuel’s family home, São Mamede House.
TABLE ONE
Table One reflects a universal heritage that is fixed without time or place. With an emphasis on function and the sensory response, this vast table, with lengths of up to 380cm (149 2/3”), has a tabletop made from just two planks of astonishingly proportioned planks of Douglas Fir timber. It is designed to be passed from generation to generation, earning the value of time and marks of memories past.
CRAFTED FROM
DOUGLAS FIR
CRAFTED FROM
DOUGLAS FIR
DOUGLAS FIR
Manuel Aires Mateus specified Douglas Fir for his furniture collection to take advantage of the spectacular proportions and consistent quality this timber offers. The use of this blond wood adds an extra dimension and intensity to the materiality of the collection. Finished naturally with a white-pigmented Danish oil and wax, the timber maintains its natural pale colour and sensuous tactility.
Neri & Hu
Neri&Hu, founded by Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu, is an inter-disciplinary award-winning architectural design practice based in Shanghai, China. The studio has partnered with De La Espada since 2013 when they introduced the first products of the Solo Series. Celebrating the 7th anniversary of the Solo launch, Neri&Hu released new members of the Solo family, as well as modularity for Sofa Eight.
SOLO TALL VITRINE
SOLO TALL VITRINE
BY NERI & HU
SOLO TALL VITRINE
Solo Tall Vitrine, part of the Solo Series, reflects the same warm modern aesthetic, thoughtful functionality, soft curved edges, and beautiful detailing of the rest of the series. The expansive dimensions of the unit, combined with large areas of clear glass and even clear glass as shelves, create an impressive display where the objects within are the main visual highlight. Detailed with machined brass handles.
Solo Cabinets
Solo Cabinets
BY NERI & HU
SOLO CABINETS
Solo 2-Door Cabinet, launched in 2018, has been joined by two new 4-door cabinets.
The solid wood cabinets, now available in three sizes, feature machined brass handles and an elegant leg frame. Organisation is optimised with cable management, adjustable internal shelving, and optional internal storage trays, available separately, that connect to the shelves with hidden magnets
Solo Bedside Chest
Solo Bedside Chest
BY NERI & HU
SOLO BEDSIDE CHEST
Solo Bedside Chest offers generous bedside storage with a small footprint. The solid wood unit features a machined brass handle, an elegant leg frame, and a single soft-close storage drawer detailed with dovetail joinery.
SOFA EIGHT
SOFA EIGHT
BY NERI & HU
SOFA EIGHT
Sofa Eight, launched as a single size in 2017, is now a modular system. With five key modules, including a timber side table, the system allows for almost limitless possible configurations.
Sofa Eight is a continuation of Neri&Hu’s exploration of an expressive tectonic language. The main supporting element of the sofa is a traditional wood joinery assemblage of stacking members in the X, Y, and Z-axes, pinned together to form a structural base.
