Architectural icons for domestic spaces

Giovanni Tomasini, designer and creative director of Studio7B, presents the collection signed by Sabina Blasiotti

Sabina Blasiotti is a young Architectural Designer from Abruzzo, who moved from Pescara to London, the city where she recently inaugurated her professional studio “Sabi“.

Here the creative does her utmost every day to develop genuine, timeless objects and spaces closely linked to the environment and to the human experiential side.

Behind Sabina a respectable background: a degree from the University of Westminster with a master‘s degree from Bartlett UCL and training experiences at renowned studios, including BIG in London and Kengo Kuma in Tokyo. As if that were not enough, international acknowledgments enrich his curriculum, such as the awards received from Azure Magazine, Architizer and UCL, and exhibitions at the Royal Academy, the Sir John Soane’s Museum, the RIBA HQ and the Salone Satellite 2023.

Precisely on the occasion of the last Design Week, the designer presents “Il Pontaio“, a capsule collection consisting of two new furnishings, an armchair and a bookcase which, in addition to being engineering masterpieces, are also particularly suggestive and significant pieces.

The initial inspiration that moved Sabina comes from the Veliero bookcase of master Franco Albini, a daring work that immediately makes us think of the famous motto “If you can imagine it, you can do it“. The design, both of the chair and of the Pontaio bookcase, incorporates the iconic elements that we can find in a linked arch bridge: two showy catenary arches support the load-bearing surfaces through slender steel suspension cables, transferring their weight to the floor. The same horizontal planes that form the bookcase shelves have a double function: they obviously support the loads but also act as structural links, preventing the arches from opening.

With a view to environmental sustainability, the entire wooden structure was made of birch plywood, a particularly valuable and high-performance plywood, with PEFC certification to guarantee its origin from controlled, sustainably managed supply chains. The excellence of the finished product shines through in the meticulous care dedicated to each single piece, sanded, varnished, polished and assembled by hand. The proposed and proudly achieved goal was to pay homage to the timeless elegance of classic Italian furniture design and to do this Sabina Blasiotti could not avoid producing her pieces in the Bel Paese.

It is precisely in Abruzzo, his homeland, that the ambitious project takes shape, thanks to local workers capable of mastering both traditional techniques and the most advanced technologies with the use of modern 5-axis CNC milling machines.

The lengthy development and production process was acollaborative experience so unifying and uplifting that the designer wanted to pay homage to its collaborators by dedicating the collection to them:“Il Pontaio is dedicated to all the people who have used and continue to use their skills, culture and knowledge to tirelessly build bridges, icons, spaces, products and services that transcend our distances to bring us closer”.

Regardless of the singular style that Il Pontaio flaunts, this collection is undeniably a fine creative work that touches all the multiple technical and emotional aspects that usually draw the line that distinguishes good furniture from a design icon.