Here the Belgian brand Extremis showed up with a very unexpected product. It was not a new design. It was a kit. Or more exactly a box in which one found the right to re-create a single version of ones favorite Extremis product. Each official license in the box contains the necessary drawings and specifications to have the design made. Though the concept was not presented as an eco-friendly idea, it most certainly is: it saves transporting designs, encourages the use of locally sourced materials and provides work to valued local craftsmen.

Dirk Wynants, the creative head of Extremis and innovative mind behind this very controversial idea, explains that the value of an Extremis product encompasses not only a production process but also the intellectual property. As a reflection of the importance of this ‘intangible’ part of the final product, the pack costs 20 percent of the price for an actual product.

The philosophy behind this range was all about taking cues from interior furniture and bringing them outside

Barwon Footstool

Just as we now think of our outdoor spaces as ‘outdoor rooms’, we’d like to change the way that people think about outdoor furniture. It used to be that you did the house, then you did up the garden and generally whatever was left over was used to buy a fairly cheap and non lasting garden setting. People are now beginning to change the way they think about their outdoor spaces, they’re getting them done professionally, they’re seeing them as an investment  and they’re including the landscape design etc as part of their overall plans rather than an add on. Likewise, we’re starting to see people  work through the same kind of value equation people when it comes to outdoor furniture.

We’re bringing internal styles like the modular sofa outside. We’re using really high quality luxury Italian and Sunbrella fabrics to raise the bar in terms of quality and aesthetics for the outdoors. We’re creating furniture that could be at home indoors or outdoors.

Another focus for us has really been to create a collection of pieces which can be mixed and matched.

Moving away from the traditional ‘buy in ranges’ where you necessarily buy the dining table and the dining chairs and the stool all in the one look, we’ve tried to provide alternative pieces that can be mixed and matched for different effect. We’re trying to make buying outdoor furniture more akin to buying indoor furniture where there is more room for personal style and selection. (We obviously have full ranges which can be bought together, but many pieces are interchangeable and we’ll be promoting this to enable designers to create their own look).

Teak plays a big role in our furniture collection this year and we think it can really be rejuvenated as a design material. Plus it’s a great environmental story

The days of heavy traditional teak slab outdoor furniture are over.  Gone are the days of the heavy shapeless slab table and chairs. Teak is experiencing a real resurgence, this time with a distinctly modern edge.  Teak’s ability to blend both classic styles with modern materials and luxury outdoor fabrics, make it the perfect choice for outdoor furniture design.

Teak plays a major role in our outdoor collection this year. We’re using new technology to created contoured shapes, we wire brush it to create a beautiful textured surface and pair it with super modern materials like stainless steel and German Rehau weave.

Teak is also a great renewable resource as planted trees are harvestable after 30 years which makes teak plantation timber a great environmental story as well. We’ve teamed up with our partners in Indonesia to invest in the ‘Trees for Trees’ program which ensures that for every plantation tree we use, a new tree is planted in its place. You can see on the ‘Trees for Trees’ dockets on our furniture that every piece can actually be traced back to the village it came from and you can see where the new tree has been planted. This is especially important in Indonesia where much of the plantation teak comes from smaller villages and therefore it’s even more crucial that renewable resources are managed at a local level.

You can check out a preview of the range right here