Cappellini’s case for the designed office

Insights shared by Kurt Wallner, CEO of Cappellini, map a path A&D teams will recognise: begin with behaviour, honour the hand, industrialise with care, and insist on the ‘of course’ test. For the workplace, that means composing environments, not buying systems – objects with authority that people choose to be around. When Italian craft meets a rigorous method, spaces stop being backdrops and start becoming places. Warm, flexible, unmistakably Cappellini.

What if Cappellini were a verb? It would mean to dare, to provoke, to take risks, and to look at a space through a different lens, then complete it. That’s the promise: not trend‑chasing, but a disciplined pursuit of ideas that feel inevitable once you see them.

Cappellini will never compromise on the primacy of the hand. Rooted in Brianza, where Enrico Cappellini opened his workshop in Carugo in 1946, the company draws on a living culture of furniture making passed from artisan to artisan. Consider the Peacock armchair by Dror, which supports body weight with pleated felt alone – an achievement reached after nearly a year of engineering and the work of skilled hands.

For much of the 20th century, ‘Made in Italy’ meant geography. Cappellini reframed it as a method, balancing tradition, raw material quality, and technological research. The Bouroullec brothers’ Cloud bookcase captures this shift: born as polystyrene for an installation, transformed into recycled plastic, and produced at scale via rotational moulding.

At the height of ’80s maximalism, Cappellini made a quiet bet: Jasper Morrison’s Thinking Man’s Chair – stripped of ornament yet deeply intelligent – went straight into production. Decades later, pieces from that era are in museum collections and remain in the catalogue. For a 20‑year horizon, consider Tom Dixon’s S‑Chair: introduced in 1991, still in production, and held by MoMA and the Triennale, with no period detail.

A piece that lasts a lifetime creates less waste than ten that don’t. Longevity is the first sustainability metric, followed by material origin, circularity, and waste reduction. Patricia Urquiola’s Ludo puts this into practice: recycled and natural fibre padding plus a removable upholstery architecture (options include repurposed nylon and Oceanic/Camira made from marine debris). Swapping a cover instead of discarding a chair multiplies useful life in ways material sourcing alone cannot. This thinking scales into a second life pathway: design for replaceable covers and serviceable parts; certify restoration partners globally; and re-introduce refurbished pieces.

The residential-contract blur is the decade’s most interesting brief. Cappellini rejects splitting beauty and performance into separate families; each new piece must meet contract grade and still feel unmistakably Cappellini, or it goes back to the drawing board. With finish versatility and client led personalisation, the brand treats ‘contamination’ between worlds as a strength. As part of the Haworth group, Cappellini pairs that design authority with a global contract network to deliver at scale.

Material: recycled and bio‑based composites. Not badges, but constraints that unlock better forms. Juli Re‑Plastic is the proof of concept.

Category: the designed office; environments people choose, composed of iconic sofas, lounge and meeting chairs, and service tables, scaled through the group’s global contract network.

Geography: Asia – major cultural, workplace, and hospitality programmes increasingly value long term gravitas and a distinct point of view, a natural fit for Cappellini’s vocabulary.

Ludo began in 2019 as a conversation about behaviour first, on how people inhabit a lounge chair. Covid pushed some remote material decisions, later revisited in person. After virtual previews, Ludo’s physical debut at Milan Design Week 2022 validated the tactile promise; its first installation followed in a high-end hospitality project on Lake Como.

For A&D: 3 ways to ‘Cappellini’

·    Brief for behaviour, then form: define how people should feel and act; let the object emerge from that intent.

·    Specify for permanence: choose pieces with structural identity over period detail.

·    Plan a second life: favour removable covers, serviceable components, and certified restoration routes. 

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