Navigating a sustainable future with Cassina LAB

Brand story by Alyn Griffiths
Meda (Mi), Italie
02.05.23

The journey to a sustainable future is a long one, but Cassina is fully on board. With Cassina LAB, the furniture brand explores circularity and innovative solutions for greener, more durable designs.

Patricia Urquiola’s Dudet armchair is engineered to be completely disassembled for ease of disposal and recycling at the end of its lifespan

Italian furniture brand Cassina has been creating cutting-edge furniture for almost 100 years, including for technically demanding environments such as luxury cruise liners. Its quest for innovation led the company to establish Cassina LAB – a path born from the collaboration with POLI.design at the Milan Polytechnic, to rethink the future of design. This approach highlights Cassina's commitment to society thanks to, for example, the identification of circular materials to be used in the manufacture of products. This mirrors a trend in the world of contemporary yacht design for a more sustainable approach to luxury that promotes quality and longevity over trend-led solutions.

Cassina’s proposals for the yachting sector utilise innovative materials such as the recycled PET fibres that fill the cushions of the MEX-HI sofa

Many of the materials featured are suitable for use in high-end boat interiors, as illustrated in the company’s new Yachting Tales catalogue. These include the polyurethane foam with a percentage of polyols deriving from biological sources and recycled PET wadding used in the Sengu Bold sofa by Patricia Urquiola and Antonio Citterio’s Esosoft sofa. Several of the company’s products, including the Dudet small armchairs by Patricia Urquiola, are also designed to facilitate recycling by ensuring the components can be separated at the end of the product’s life.

The Bio-mbo bed’s fabric headboard uses technology to reduce air pollutants, while the polyurethane padding in the legs of the Dudet chair contains a percentage of polyols derived from organic sources

Cassina LAB prioritises well-being and has implemented functions that can enhance sleeping areas such as a boat’s cabins. Both the Bio-mbo bed by Patricia Urquiola and the Volage EX-S Night bed by Philippe Starck can be provided with the Breath® air-purifying fabric, the first patented zero-emission technology for air purification that captures and breaks down contaminants to encourage the natural circulation of clean air, and sound-absorbing panels to improve the room’s acoustic performance. With these groundbreaking designs, Cassina is charting a course for a healthier and more sustainable future.

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