A furniture collection realized with cork regenerated from fires

The reference to the Arabian phoenix is perhaps all too obvious, but it still remains inescapable. The second collection of the Portuguese brand Made in Situ, conceived by Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance with research that has invested as much in the manufacturing process as in its formal outcome, makes use of an apparently compromised and unusable material, the cork burned during the fires that devastated Portugal in 2017, to transform it into a new furniture collection.

The idea of turning a waste into an opportunity comes to the French designer after his move to the Lusitanian country: "The challenge in this collection was to extract beauty from a dramatic experience. The Burnt Cork collection is born from the ashes; I wanted to express that tension in the design, that is how the idea of creating customized blocks that reveal a gradient from raw burnt cork to a refined finish emerged" he tells Domus.

Finalized after a complex two-year experimentation, the pieces are the result of a supply chain that combines artisanal and industrial processing. Assembled by hand in a series of blocks by Granorte, a small family-run specialist company, the cork mass was carved by industrial robots from the NF Cork company following Duchaufour-Lawrance's designs. Emerging by subtraction from this salvaged material, the one-piece seats, tables and stools enhance their sculptural nature through the fluidity of the lines and integrate the effects of the burns, destigmatizing them.