On The Rocks by Francesco Binfaré for Edra

19 February 2021

The sofa is one of the load-bearing furnishings of every home and has its roots in the Roman triclinium. It is therefore very ancient and yet has undergone few changes over time, tending to remain the same and constant in its fundamental elements. With a few daring exceptions of perhaps too avant-garde projects, the sofa retained its classic forms, at least until 2004, the year in which Francesco Binfaré brought a real and lasting innovation, introducing the concept of a deconstructed sofa with his On The Rocks.

This very particular name actually refers to an image from which the visual inspiration for this project came: people sitting on the rocks enjoying the sea. This contrast between the hardness of stone and the comfort of sitting and sunbathing embodies all the iconographic charge of the sofa, where the design challenge was precisely to maximize comfort but also make it changeable. The exact opposite, therefore, of the immobile hardness of the rocks. Edra, a company accustomed to formal and substantial experimentation, has embraced this challenge with a foresight that was then rewarded by success.

The core of On the Rocks is made up of four seating elements of different geometric shapes, three polygons and a quadrilateral, which can be freely combined. The prevailing padding is in Gellyfoam®, a patented and exclusive foam designed to give soft support, and the same applies to the two flexible and movable backrests to be placed as desired. At the base of the backrests there are disks in a thermoformed skirt that prevent them from sliding, giving them the necessary stability to be able to use them as a stable but soft support.

The whole is large and its structural versatility allows it to be placed on the wall, in a corner or in the center of the room where it expresses itself in all its sculptural value.

The basic nucleus of four elements can also be extended by adding other elements and having fun creating different formal and functional solutions. They can be more regular and compact, as well as branched and scattered, to create more points of conversation and relaxation. In fact, thanks to the flexibility of the backrests, the sofa can be used by several people at the same time in a different way.

And as on the rocks, people are invited to change position to adapt it to their comfort, so too the On the rocks sofa, invites you to reclaim your pleasure, through change, questioning that pre-established order according to which the sofa is to understand each other in a traditional way and consequently also our way of using it and through it interacting with the people close to us.

On the rocks, it is revolutionary and invites a general reflection on our relationship with the house and its furnishings, from which we can expect greater flexibility and the possibility of change.

And yet On the rocks makes everyone agree by fitting into glamorous living rooms, as well as in contexts with a more intellectual style, and is perfect in an industrial-style loft as well as in a contemporary-style mountain home. And this is how you become an icon: with an intelligent revolution that elegantly suggests an innovation that is not only formal but also concrete and related to the way we interact with furnishings, a changing way that follows the changes in our life and of those who accompany us in life.

In the picture: On the rocks was included by Edra in the set-up created for Casa Cortina, on the occasion of the World Alpine Ski Championship.

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