BLAU, SMALL SCALE ARCHITECTURE
Fran who directs Fran Silvestre architects is a passionate adherent of architecture, design and art. The search for efficient beauty lends form to his architectural projects and is clearly legible in the BLAU outdoor furniture collection for GANDIABLASCO. BLAU exemplifies the aesthetic concept of Fran at a smaller scale than his usual architectural projects but is established on the same premises in terms of deign, quality, efficiency and beauty.
“The concept of the BLAU collection comes from a search for innovative tradition” explains Fran. The idea was to “take a typical Mediterranean piece of furniture and make it material using soldered aluminium.” Using “the minimum amount of material necessary in the simplest of ways,” he designed an outdoors sculptural light fitting, and subsequent furniture collection that features chaise-longues, arm chairs, chairs, tables, sofas and foot rests made entirely of either anodised or powder-coated aluminium. This manufacturing system that includes perforated panels for the seating, achieves an extremely light touch, almost translucent: “The light can pass through, making the various elements appear extremely light”. This porosity makes the pieces appear different according to the time of day and the angle of view.
The ‘pared back’ to the essentials design of the BLAU outdoor furniture collection which won a prestigious NYCxDesign Award in the Outdoor category and that expresses so perfectly the Mediterranean lifestyle clearly evoked in all the work of Fran Silvestre, is both an harmonious and timeless collection. Based in Valencia Fran Silvestre Architects has received important prizes such as the MH in Berlin (2009) and a Red Dot Award (2013) as well as the German Design Award (2016). Within the following three projects that we profile the BLAU outdoor furniture pieces become an extension of the architecture within their surroundings, characteristics that are regularly highlighted in the work of Fran. Furniture elements are organised under a porch and in front of the swimming pool underlining the metallic and horizontal character of the building that gives the impression of being a single storey structure integrated with the surrounding trees. Within this context the chaise-longues, the chairs and the tables appear as an architectural extension to the house opening up towards the landscape.
