Designer Spotlight | Palomba

BEHIND THE DESIGN #2

SPOTLIGHT ON THE DESIGNERS: LUDOVICA+ROBERTO PALOMBA FOR LAUFEN

For the next few weeks, you’ll be wearing your backstage pass as we take you behind the scenes of some of the greatest design and introduce you to the shining stars of the industrial design and architecture universe. Today the spotlight falls on an incandescent duo – Ludovica+Roberto Palomba – whose label and logo you may well have spotted in your nearest showroom... on extraordinary pieces of hardworking, everyday art displayed in the LAUFEN MASTERCRAFT Pavillion.

Ludovica+Roberto Palomba, aka Ludovica Palomba Serafina and Roberto Palomba, are exceptional architects and industrial designers, who’ve been both work and life partners since the early 1990s, with their Palomba Serafini Associati interior and architecture studio in ... you guessed it ... Milan. (Only the most fashionable address in Italy, and the epicentre of European design!) When they’re not creating, inventing, conceptualising or lecturing, the couple decompress in their retreat in Puglia. Jealous much?

Perhaps it was the wave-worn Puglian coastline with its ocean current-carved rockpools that planted the seed of an award-winning biophilic concept we’ll be unpacking in just a minute. But meantime, back to Milan.

One of the hallmarks of their Milan-based work is the fearless experimentation with new or unusual material. Another is a sensitivity to all issues relating to functionality and the need to provide long-lasting spaces and products to enhance them. This ‘unafraid approach’ to experimentation and practicality was what opened their eyes to the creative possibilities offered by Saphirkeramik, the ultra-thin, ultra-strong, ultra-sustainable new substance developed by Swiss Sanware pioneers LAUFEN. And so, a fascinating collab began and a like-minded partnership was forged, based on the shared pursuit of perfection.

In 2005, with the birth of their successful LAUFEN PALOMBA COLLECTION, the design duo effectively developed a design language they termed “a fingerprint of nature’, using the Milanese design world’s fresh focus of the time as a springboard: a move between rigid geometry and asymmetry, with the exploration of organic shapes. Years later, Biophilic Design remains a powerful design movement.

The limited-edition pieces from the LAUFEN PALOMBA COLLECTION that are displayed in our showrooms under the LAUFEN MASTERCRAFT banner all sing the seductive song of the ebb and flow of the ocean against the rocks as it softens the rough edges of stone into pebbles. It’s an extraordinarily compelling design language that demands to be touched.

The biophilic shapes of each piece of sanware in the collection were made possible by the phenomenal strength and elasticity of LAUFEN’s Saphirkeramik. It’s a futuristic technology that produces bionically powerful ceramic material that can be moulded and shaped into exquisitely gracile forms. Delicate, lightweight, wafer-thin. But tough as nails. Well, as tough as Corundum, actually, which is a mineral compound found in sapphires. The 4 – 5mm ‘walls’ and tight-edge radii of just 1 – 2mm, achieved with Saphirkeramik, are tougher that the old school thicker, rounder sanware forms. Revolutionary.

Italtile’s exclusive selection of sanware from the PALOMBA COLLECTION

All elements of Italtile’s exclusive LAUFEN MASTERCRAFT PALOMBA COLLECTION have been designed to harmonise together, no matter which elements you select to create your biophilic, spa-style bathroom sanctuary. And each piece bears the signature emblem of Italy’s golden designer couple.

Each piece in the LAUFEN PALOMBA COLLECTION is supported by a 5-year warranty on manufacture defects. There is also promise of superior quality as each piece is carefully checked by personnel prior to leaving the factory.

Like all LAUFEN products, the PALOMBA COLLECTION has been created with impeccable eco credentials, in line with Italtile’s LiveGreen ethos. LAUFEN’s manufacturing process focus on sustainable methods of production that include the carefully monitored use of resources during production, a recycling programme, and then ultimately, the manufacture of products that function with elevated waterwise processes, to minimise the use of the planet’s most precious resource.

From the wave-worn coast of Puglia, to the fashion capital of Milan, to LAUFEN’s headquarters near Basel in Switzerland, and back to an Italtile Showroom near you. Where you can run your fingers lovingly over our exclusive investment pieces of LAUFEN PALOMBA, and experience first-hand the effect of award-winning biophilic design on the senses. What a rush.

Live beautifully.

Ciao.