FIGULUS CHAISE LOUNGE by PADDY PIKE

Rooted in the ancient, tectonic terrain of Italy, the Figulus Collection is Paddy Pike's poetic cycle born from the earth itself. Long before it took form as furniture, this material was forged within the primordial volcanic furnace of Mount Vesuvius, cooling slowly over millennia into solid stone. Its journey continued at the foot of the very volcano that created it, where it was hand sculpted and shaped into forms that are soft, rounded, and unmistakably sculptural, evoking totems as much as furniture. Named after the Latin word for clay maker, Figulus honors this timeless alchemy, the transformation of raw earth through intense heat into objects of quiet permanence

This process of transformation is written directly into the physical language of the collection, defined throughout by structural honesty. Each piece bears the visible seams of its making, the bands and rings left behind as the material was worked and joined by hand. Rather than concealing these marks, Pike allows them to remain fully exposed, turning what might elsewhere be hidden into a kind of geological record, evidence of the object's own formation, not unlike sediment layered over time

This raw narrative takes on a vibrant new life during the intense heat of the kiln firing. Here, a high gloss glaze is introduced, though it does not simply rest on the surface. It reacts, fuses, and transforms chemically with the basalt stone itself, becoming inseparable from the material it touches. Through this heat, the finish emerges as a living extension of the stone's volcanic soul, carrying forward the same forces that first shaped it

This process intentionally discards uniform perfection in favor of a surface that is unpredictable and deeply expressive. Slight variations in depth, tone, and light reflection move across each piece, a direct trace of the volatile chemistry at work within the rock. No two surfaces settle the same way, and it is this variance, rather than any pursuit of consistency, that gives each piece its individual character

Seating pieces within the collection rise and swell with an almost bodily weight, their glazed surfaces catching light in shifting pools of color, while their solidity grounds them firmly to the earth from which they came

The conceptual soul of this journey finds its fullest expression within the collection's fireplaces, where ancient Vesuvian stone is once again given purpose as a vessel for fire, closing the circle between origin and object. Handcrafted in Italy by Ranieri, each piece returns the material to the very element that first gave it form