Relaxing On the Rocks: the story of Edra’s iconic modular sofa

Storytelling is a powerful design tool that has been used throughout history – it is a form of communication that appeals to our imaginations with the ability to transport us to new realms. Behind most icons of great design, you will undoubtedly find a story that has inspired their aspirational status.

One of these is On the Rocks, an innovative, organic modern sofa created in 2004 by designer Francesco Binfaré and Edra. The former wrote the story, one of escapism and the beauty and intelligence of nature, which begins in the Mediterranean; and the latter brought decades of upholstery expertise to tell that story through a piece of furniture with extraordinary practical and social function.

In anticipation of the 20th anniversary of On the Rocks this upcoming 2024, here we tell its story from its founding idea, the technology that brought it to life, its disruptive nature in the living space and its values of comfort and freedom. Like many of his creations, this sofa was born from Binfaré’s wandering and spontaneous imagination; he envisioned a form that could support the body just like nature does. He pictured bathers basking on the rocks of the Apulian coast, where bodies seeking rest and rejuvenation mould to the landscape.

Designing On the Rocks was about creating this experience for the domestic space – freeing the body into total individual comfort, freeing the form of the sofa from any assumptions and therefore the living space itself. Made up of four irregularly shaped elements (three polygons and a quadrilateral), it can take on various organic compositions in space.

The two backrest options can be positioned with freedom – gripping to the seat elements with neat rubber discs. People can truly inhabit the form; lounging with varying degrees of support they find comfortable, facing the direction they please. The sofa itself perhaps feels most comfortable in the centre of a room, placing comfort at the top of the interior hierarchy.

On the Rocks was an important launch for Edra – defining an innovative new direction for upholstery in the 21st century. By using nature as inspiration to deconstruct the form and expectations of the sofa, it anticipated how the contemporary sofa is used today as a place for relaxation, yet also for creativity and work, both solo experiences and social conversations. On the Rocks became the first of more expressive and organic designs from Edra, such as Pack (2017), also by Binfaré and inspired by icebergs.

While this sofa certainly marked a new era, it also reflects Edra’s long-standing focus on comfort. Since Edra was founded in the late 1980s by siblings Monica and Valerio Mazzei as an upholstery arm of their family’s furniture business, the historic craft of furniture-making by hand has been combined with technical research and innovation to achieve the highest possible level of durable and high-quality visual and physical comfort in every piece.

On the Rocks was the very first sofa to use Edra’s patented Gellyfoam® polyurethane material, which had been in development since 1997. This new material allowed On the Rocks to find its deconstructed and organic form and for joints and mechanisms to be eliminated. The cover material is a soft fabric available in many colours with a three-dimensional appearance evocative of the surface of a rock covered in moss and lichen. The patterned yarn shaded in the weft emerges from the background texture creating a sense of depth that is pleasurable to touch, durable to use and soft on the eye.

Yet perhaps the most enduring quality of Edra’s furniture pieces are the stories that they tell. ‘Behind our projects there must always be an intelligent idea that becomes part of our way of inventing, of innovating, of doing research,’ said Monica Mazzei in a recent interview. Binfaré’s work aligns with this: ‘All of his pieces start with a story,’ she says. The end to that story? Relax ‘On the Rocks’, let your imagination wander and decide for yourself.

© Architonic

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