“Brutalist” furniture features in PL:VV collection by PLDO and Savvy

Chairs made from volcanic rock, pigmented concrete furniture and touch-sensitive lamps were among the prototypes presented by studios PLDO and Savvy during this year’s Design Week Mexico.

The two companies teamed up to work on PL:VV – a collection of experimental furniture and lighting.

Shown as prototypes, the designs come in a wide variety of styles, colours and materials. They include chairs made from flat slabs of colourful volcanic, which are arranged perpendicular to one another to create legs, seats and backs.

Concrete pigmented with a light pink hue is used for a chunky, modular shelving unit, and a pair of semi-cylindrical side tables that can be positioned flush against a wall, or fitted together to form a larger stand.

The team said the set was influenced by the brutalist architecture movement, which previously informed designer Liliana Ovalle’s decorative concrete objects and patterned textiles by Custhom.

Painted and untreated wood, metal mesh and coated aluminium are also the eclectic range of chairs, some of which feature leather or fabric-upholstered seats.

A large steel chest of drawers developed for a museum archive features storage compartments that roll out on both sides, and are held by a heavy frame of overlapping bars.

Lighting designs include mushroom-shaped table lamps, which have touch-sensitive stems that turn the bulbs on and off with a gentle tap. Their tops are also concrete.

The PL:VV designs were displayed across several rooms of a historic building in Mexico City‘s Roma Norte neighbourhood, next door to Savvy’s studio space at Córdoba 25, where a model utopian city made of chocolate was on show.

Pablo Limón Design Office (PDLO) was co-founded by Mexican designer Pablo Limón, who is also a partner of architecture and branding studio Savvy, along with Rafael Prieto and Bernardo Dominguez. Both Savvy and PDLO have offices in the Mexican capital and New York City, while the latter also operates from Madrid.

Design Week Mexico took place from 11 to 15 October 2017, after it was pushed back a week due to a severe earthquake that struck a month before.

Other furniture collections shown during the event included a debut line from local brand Pirwi that incorporates Mexican craft, and a range by a pair of Swiss designers produced with the help of palm weavers in Oaxaca.

Read more

• Furniture
• Design