Milan, Italy
Designed by Piero Lissoni from Lissoni and Partners studio and manufactured by B&B Italia—a leading company in the field of contemporary furnishing—the new Borea Collection of outdoor furniture is made of high-quality and sustainable materials.
Borea Collection’s recently won a 2022 Green Good Design Award from The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
B&B Italia constantly works to develop projects that consider the product’s entire life cycle, starting from a designer’s idea, passing through the choice of materials and production, and ending with the user’s experience.
But right from the start, it looks ahead to the life cycle’s end, and the recovery and disposal of the materials that make up the product.
From this perspective, Borea is an eco-design collection that uses recycled and recyclable materials and offers exceptional design, comfort, and durability.
The starting point of the seating collection—two-and three-seater sofas, an oversized armchair, a low small armchair, and a dining chair—are lightweight tubular aluminum structures that combine a fluid, continuous design with functionality and sustainability.
Aluminum is a sustainable choice because it is extremely strong and durable, entirely and easily recyclable, thus infinitely reusable to create new products every time.
The cushions are made of polyester fiber obtained from recycled PET plastic bottles.
Recycling 1 kg of PET produces 930 gr of new material, a fiber with exceptional softness, elasticity, and durability, entirely sustainable and circular as it is fully recycled and recyclable.
The recycled polyester fiber is used for the upholstery, its covers’ waterproof canvas, and the yarn used for the stitching and zips.
The seat cushion is completed by a polyurethane section with differentiated density to increase its support capacity.
At the end of the product’s life cycle, this section can be easily separated and disposed of.
Approximately 280 1,500-ml plastic bottles are used to create the upholstery for an armchair, 390 for a two-seater sofa, and 510 for a three-seater sofa.
With Borea Collection, B&B Italia continues its commitment to developing projects that are increasingly focused on sustainability.
In addition to using recycled and recyclable materials, all the furniture in the collection can be completely disassembled so that, at the end of its life cycle, each element can be separated and disposed of following the path best suited to each material.
The circular economy thus becomes a sustainability paradigm, not merely an abstract philosophy, but a concept for the design of industrial processes.
Project: Borea Collection
Designers: Piero Lissoni, Lissoni & Partners
Manufacturers: B&B Italia SpA.
