Grace is a new a die-cast aluminum range of furniture for Italian brand EMU designed by London based designer Samuel Wilkinson. The family consists of a stacking chair and armchair, a stool, and a folding café table. The full collection will be officially launched at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan in April, after previewing at Cologne IMM. It will be available in a range of matte and gloss paint finishes.
Grace draws inspiration from early 20th century wood furniture and is created to work in all environments, indoor and outdoor. The lightweight furniture has a deceptively heavy appearance due to the deep hollowed seat pad, which is in reality only 3mm thick.
The folding café table has a simple self-locking mechanism and the legs have been designed to stack neatly in series.
‘We were commissioned by EMU to design a contemporary chair/armchair that could cross the boundaries of indoor and outdoor furniture. Utilising their extensive knowledge of metal furniture we wanted to design a democratic collection that would have a strong character and style but still come in at an affordable price. By making the castings and connections work hard we have reduced the amount of welding to a minimum. This allows flexibility for the manufacturer and helps to reduce cost as smaller components can be individually finished then assembled before shipping.’
The aluminum components allow Grace to be fully resistant to atmospheric conditions. The pieces can easily be disassembled and recycled at the end of its life.