Branca Chair | MC2

In 2009, Mattiazzi approached Sam Hecht and the office of Industrial Facility with an idea: — to imagine a design office not commonly known for wooden furniture immersing themselves into the world of Mattiazzi and producing furniture family.

This combination of intelligence with all that is wood (Mattiazzi) and innocent naivety (Industrial Facility) was to result in a familiar typology produced in an unexpected manner. It was to be Mattiazzi’s second collection under their own brand, the first having been designed by Nitzan Cohen. This new trajectory for Mattiazzi asks important designers of the 21st Century: what is a new relevance for wood as applied to furniture? — for Industrial Facility this was undoubtedly an unusual project, says Hecht. — our studio normally finds itself tackling items of mass — production, where the origins of production are rarely the same place where the project is commissioned.

Industrial Facility has never lost sight of reality when it comes to the reason for a project: its use, its production and even its marketing. This attitude has set them apart from what design has gradually become, because the studio sees great value in how something is made, its materiality, and its message, rather than succumbing to the proliferation of a rendered reality and an “at arms length” vision of production.

After several trips to Mattiazzi’s factory, along with close discussions with their craftsmen, Industrial Facility wished to push Mattiazzi further into the position of the robotic craftsman.

What is a chair whose ingredients are a combination of highly complex parts (made possible with CNC machinery, most notably their eight axis robot which they had become expert at), alongside simple traditional shaping and finishing by hand?

— I observed that the power of the robot, the repetition of the machine and the skills of the craftsmen already have synchronised relationships at Mattiazzi, where each process is as carefully selected as much as the wood blocks that were to be shaped — says Hecht.