PASSIO’s inventive design was conceived for indoor living, but the choice of materials allows it to be enjoyed outdoors. Nigro’s signature themes of intersections and interlocking elements are apparent in the arms and back. They comprise passivated stainless steel wire topped with foam cushions in high-resilience Bultex® foam, with a water-repellent cloth liner and waterproof sealed seam.

Philippe Nigro has been working for some years now on the themes of intersecting, interlocking and combined shapes, brilliantly demonstrating these concepts with his Confluences settees and Insepérable table-footstool. Here, he intertwines these studies with another principle which has already been explored by means of the flax armchair : the updating of the structure of a seat, a functional carcase which is habitually concealed from view, and which becomes, on the contrary, its principle aesthetic attribute.

Whereas Flax offered us a structure in curved slats of solid walnut, the structure of Passio is an exploration of curved stainless steel wire. The vertical lines of the back of the Passio settee intersect the horizontal lines of the arms, forming a very attractive woven effect at their two meeting points.

The back/arm assembly frames a highly animated graphic play between the asymmetrical treatment of the two arms, with the second being higher and wider than the first. The construction of the Passio armchair explores a further variant on this theme, resulting from the way in which the two arms and the back are put together, with the vertical lines of one intersecting the horizontal lines of the other.

designer: philippe nigro
producer: ligne roset
introduced: maison objet 2011