This year Cassina continues to renew its commitment to adopt a more conscious approach towards the environment and people through the work of Cassina LAB, a continuously expanding philosophy born from the collaboration with POLI.design at the Milan Polytechnic.
The circular materials identified for product development, such as recycled PET for the sofa wadding, have once again been employed in the 2022 Collection’s products. This year, in particular, Cassina LAB’s activities are focused on the disassemblability of the products in order to facilitate the recovery and the recycling of materials at the end of their life cycle.
With the aim of improving and measuring product circularity with tangible data, Cassina has implemented a tool that maps key indicators, like the percentage of circularity and disassembly index. This innovative method, for in-house use, has the objective of optimising product design and production to steer the company towards greater sustainability.
The Milan Design Week 2022 was an opportunity to present some innovations characterised by an approach that looks towards sustainability.
Ecosoft, a sofa with an elegant design that recalls the 1960s sense of informal comfort combined with contemporary production techniques, designed by architect Antonio Citterio. Thanks to the work of Cassina Lab, circular materials were used for the sofa, such as polyurethane foam padding containing a percentage of bio-based polyols, covered in recycled PET wadding. While the back cushions are padded with blown recycled PET fibre.
Another featured novelty is Modular Imagination by Virgil Abloh, modular blocks composed of two construction elements of different sizes, which can be combined to create and adapt the space as required. The components can be easily separated thanks to a dashed line indicating the point at which the soft polyurethane upholstery, containing a percentage of bio-based polyols, can be cut, separating it from the recycled wood structure in order to facilitate the proper recovery of the elements at the end of its life cycle.
Inside the Cassina showroom there is also a limited edition of the Soriana armchair, a design icon, offered in three types of denim: indigo blue, écru and black. The classic indigo blue is made from a 100% cotton fabric, 60% of which is of certified renewable organic origin. Once the upholstery has been sewn, the fabric is sent to a specialised laundry where it is scuffed and then sandblasted using by-products from the recovery of waste materials of organic origin, such as walnut shells, to restore the faded effect typical of jeans worn over time. The structure of the armchair is made from a series of sacs filled with microspheres consisting of a patented foam with a biological base composed of biopolymers; this circular material is durable, biodegradable and compostable at the end of its life cycle. The upholstery is made of blown recycled PET fibre. The same material is also used for the padding of the lining that wraps around the inner structure like a soft quilt.
Recycled and bio-based materials, durability and disassemblability are some of the special features of these new products, for which circularity was also measured in cooperation with Matrec.