KNOTTY

Rotterdam-based design studio The New Raw, run by architects Panos Sakkas and Foteini Setaki, will participate in the 2023 Milan Design Week with the project “Knotty”—a collection of playful benches with a bold and tactile texture, on display at Alcova.

Inspired by knitting techniques, the project treats plastic waste as a continuous thread of material which folds, twists and loops to create an intriguing tactile surface that resembles textiles, and which invites users to touch it.

This innovative 3D sculpted fabric dresses a new family of benches, produced in three different sizes and two colors: mint and peach. Made in the shape of bent and swinging blocks, their silhouette fosters interaction and invites spontaneous use. Their scattered layout along the Gallery of Porta Vittoria’s former slaughterhouse, re-arranges and transforms the space in a playful manner, while providing an opportunity for rest and an ideal conversation starter.

The sculpted material texture, consisting of thick and seemingly soft knots, creates a tactile, permeable and load-bearing type of surface for outdoor and indoor furniture or other architectural applications. “Knitted patterns” can be upscaled and become ornaments and building units that embody a new digitally-crafted materiality.

The New Raw is a research and design studio based in Rotterdam (Netherlands) founded in 2015 by architects Panos Sakkas and Foteini Setaki with the ambition to give new life to discarded materials through design, robots and craftsmanship. The New Raw develops its own (digital) craftsmanship techniques through a formal and technical language that highlights the texture and the layer-by-layer character of its in-house robotic manufacturing process. The exploration of the possibilities that the robotic techniques provide transform plastic waste into beautiful and meaningful products that are 100% circular.