Making modularity casual with cbdesign

There’s nothing quite like a tide of worldwide economic and security uncertainty to bring our focus to what is important in the way we live. While on the one hand this would suggest we should all now have increased clarity of vision and newfound powers of decisiveness, in fact the biggest lesson learnt from the on-going lack of certainty is our need for flexibility and adaptability. In particular, social and economic trends are always quick to be mirrored in our designed environments and, accordingly, modularity has become one of the most valued characteristics of contemporary furniture.

Modular furniture allows you to tailor furniture to your individual space. It’s nothing new, but increasingly it’s not just a case of choosing how many sections are in your sofa, it’s about the design of systems that can entirely adapt to new situations after initial installation, that can shift and mould to evolving needs, be added to ad hoc and even be used as building blocks to define and sculpt space in a new way and blur boundaries. Form us with Love did it for offices with the design of Epix for Keilhauer last year, and Stefan Diez has done it for interior living spaces with Costume, his new sofa system for Magis. Casual Modular by cbdesign, meanwhile, shows how, now that the outdoors is considered an extension of our living rooms, modularity is growing in exterior offerings too.

'Spaces are no longer determined, but fluid. Modularity makes it possible to furnish and delimit spaces at the same time, but also to "update" the furniture without additional expense,' says Carlo Basso, the designer of the Casual Modular system. 'In this collection, the peculiarity of the individual modules is that they do not have a main side (which is usually the front side) but each side has its own specificity for furnishing solutions.'

Casual Modular is a furnishing system made to withstand the elements, but equally at home, in lobbies and in holiday villas as well as poolsides. It is almost entirely designed around a teak base in various sizes and shapes. When a cushion is added it can become a pouff, a bench or a section of a sofa. If a tray is added it becomes a coffee table, or alone it is also a table, filling gaps between seating with a handy ledge. Woven back rests can be inserted to give more structure where needed too.

'The various elements can be positioned anywhere in the space to be furnished with the possibility of countless combinations,' says Basso. 'The limit of combinations is only the imagination.' Designed for 360 viewing, the various elements can be used like building blocks to form room sets which can easily be broken down and reconfigured, should there be a call for change. It fits in well with the recent evolution of ‘outdoor rooms’, providing not only the furnishings but the walls too.

A finalist in the outdoors section of the International Society of Furniture Designers 2021 Pinnacle Awards, Casual Modular’s adaptability is proving popular among hotels stateside. It is made all the more desirable by the maker’s commitment to sustainable sourcing and longevity – cbdesign is signed up to the Indonesian Legal Wood protocol which sees use of teak wood derived from plantations strictly controlled by the Indonesian government under the supervision of the European Union. Mature trees are cut only in controlled areas and replanted. But while responsible manufacturing gets you a long way in the world of design these days, add to this the ability to meet the newfound mindset of adaptability with the ultimate in flexible furnishing, and the world’s your oyster.

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