Around the world with Pedrali's premium outdoor designs

90%. Nine, zero.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, that's the amount of time Americans spend, on average, indoors. And the picture is just as eyebrow-raising in the UK with the pandemic having increased the average Briton's time dodging fresh air by a staggering eight hours a day.

If ever we need to step outside again, it's now. With Covid restrictions being eased, the return to a large extent of our previous behavioural patterns is attended in many by a reevaluation of what it means to be outside. There are the health benefits, of course, but also social ones (the two are, let's be honest, bound up with each other), as we seek to define anew what our shared public spaces should look like and the kind of experience they should deliver.

‘Outdoor spaces are ever more being designed to ensure well-being and for an escape from everyday life,’ suggests Monica Pedrali, CEO of heavyweight Italian manufacturer Pedrali, ‘such as restaurants and cafés, but also inspiring shared work environments. Through the choice and personalisation of furniture, such places offer enclosed, orderly retreats that respond in a more specific way to their users’ needs.’

For Pedrali, which boasts an impressive outdoor furniture and lighting portfolio, authored by the likes of Patrick Jouin, CMP Design and Eugeni Quitllet, design for exterior settings is in the blood. ‘It’s where our roots lie,’ explains Monica. ‘In the early 1960s, my father Mario founded a small workshop, where he began to produce wrought-iron garden furniture.’

A number of their current collections, such as Nolita and Tribeca – designed by Como-based creative trio CMP Design – echo this original DNA in their forms and silhouettes, and have been specified the world over for a raft of high-end contract projects.

So, here come five of the best locations, all of which testify to high-quality production, durability and impressive functionality, as well as ease of maintenance, lightness (very important when you have furniture that needs to be moved frequently) and stackability.

Les Ombres restaurant, Musée du Quai Branly
Paris, France
Ateliers Jean Nouvel

Designed by French architectural grandee Jean Nouvel, the Museé du Quai Branly in Paris’s 7th arrondissement is both cultural destination and posthumous tribute to former president Jacques Chirac, who instigated the project. The rooftop restaurant continues the building’s iconic green wall with this legion of plants. It’s in this garden context that Pedrali’s Nolita chairs and armchairs were installed, creating, with their semi-transparent, wiry silhouette, a clever dialogue with the form of the adjacent Eiffel Tower.

Restaurant Voltaire terrace, Parc Broekhuizen
Leersum, Netherlands
Judith van Mourik

When it came to Restaurant Voltaire in Parc Broekhuizen, an historic house located in the Dutch town of Leersum, 20 kilometres outside Utrecht, interior architect Judith van Mourik availed herself of a combination of two made-for-outdoor Pedrali highlights: Panarea armchairs, designed by CMP Design, with their celebration of Italian craftsmanship in the form of hand-woven, weather-resistant polypropylene cord; and three-seater sofas and armchairs from Patrick Jouin's Reva Twist collection, where the steel backrest and armrests are also woven with a flat polypropylene rope.

Icaro Hotel
Kastelruth, South Tyrol, Italy
MoDus Architects

In the Italian region of South Tyrol, guests at the Icaro Hotel, situated about 20 kilometres northeast of Bolzano, relax on Pedrali loungers while consuming spectacular views of the Alps. Specified by MoDus Architects, the product in question is Rail, a pared-down, yet extremely comfortable, sun lounger that marries a powder-coated aluminium frame with four angled legs in stainless steel. Upholstered in a water-repellent, UV-resistant fabric, Rail delivers pared-down sophistication for an effective architectural harmony.

Atoles Retreat
Santorini, Greece
Stones & Walls

Athens-based interior-design studio Stones & Walls were responsible for creating Atoles Retreat on the Greek island of Santorini, which boasts the topographical splendour of being located on a clifftop in the village of Imerovigli. Designed in the vernacular idiom, the hotel comprises five suites that meld into the rough terrain of the site. The outdoor terraces feature Pedrali’s Intrigo armchairs and Bold tables, which appear almost as still lives against the sun-bleached, off-white architectural surfaces on and against which they’re positioned.

The Coach House
Kangarilla, Adelaide, Australia
Fabrikate

At the Coach House – a boutique hotel housed in a 19th-century sandstone building not far from Adelaide, adapted by Fabrikate in collaboration with local building G-Force – the architects have opted for the Remind armchairs by Eugeni Quitllet. Here, the visual lightness of this injection-moulded monobloc and its reference to classic bentwood furniture forms are delivered via an environmentally conscious material, where 50% of it is derived from post-consumer plastic waste and the other half from industrial plastic waste. Tradition in lockstep with innovation. Very Pedrali.

© Architonic