Outdoor furniture is a genre that has slowly but surely been getting a lot more attention. Designers are focusing on creating functional, and aesthetic pieces, that are not only super practical for public use but can also contribute to the beautification of streets and public places. One such design, which also happens to be, the Top Design Winner of European Product Design Award 2022 is ‘Plint’.
Designer: Studio Pastina
Italian design studio Pastina created Plint, a collection of urban furniture for Punto Design. Pastina describes Plint as “more than just a street bench”, and I wholeheartedly agree. The colorful and quirky pieces of this collection are a far cry from the dreary brown benches, we often see scattered around cities. Plint on the other hand plays with diverse materials, geometrics, and visual perceptions, highlighting the interesting contrasts between them. This makes Plint anything but boring!
Thin sinuous lines are placed upon solid sharp volumes. These volumes form the base of the design and seem to be crafted from concrete. They’re quite bulky and could hold pretty heavy weights. The base is also modular, hence allowing each piece to be used individually, or to be combined with other pieces to create compositions of various lengths. The thin lines have an almost grid-like quality, and they come in multiple colors, hence giving each piece a unique and bright personality.
The Plint family includes a variety of different furniture – from benches to chaise longues. When you place all the furniture designs together, you have a charming and cheery collection of pieces “in which visual lightness and bold proportions coexist in perfect balance”. The Plint collection is a sophisticated range of furniture, which takes outdoor furniture to a whole new level, one in which aesthetics, functionality, and ergonomics blend together harmoniously.
