Hospitality Design - August 2023 - 66

perspectives brand identity
products profile
By Alia Akkam
Photos courtesy of Piegatto
AHEAD OF THE CURVE
Piegatto reinvigorates Guatemala's design scene
The process of conceiving Piegatto's chairs, stools, tables, benches,
One of the first pieces of furniture that Guatemalan design studio Piegatto
created when it launched in 2006 is Pipo, a striking monolithic chair
flaunting plywood curves that appear as if they are in motion. " The chair
becomes a person in a certain way because it's communicating through the
armrests. It is a gesture that is welcoming, " says Piegatto cofounder and
design director Alejandro Estrada.
As a child, Estrada often played alone on his father's farm, nurturing
his imagination far from city life. That pastoral immersion, coupled with an
affinity for drawing, was the starting point of his creative career.
He was an architecture student at Francisco Marroquín University
when he met and fell in love with Sandra Ovalle. The couple then moved to
Italy, studying sculpture and art restoration, respectively, in Florence before
returning to Guatemala and launching their firm, Substancia, in 2000. This
architecture studio, restoration workshop, and art gallery was tasked with
plentiful residential, commercial, and retail spaces, but in 2006, Estrada and
Ovalle wanted to shift direction.
Substancia began to morph into Piegatto (the name, meaning to bend or
fold, is a nod to the pair's time in Italy), focusing on designing furniture " that
can withstand time, " as Estrada puts it. With Ovalle overseeing the fiber and
textile department and their son Pietro, an architect who joined the business
in 2016 as a junior designer, Piegatto is a true family enterprise.
bookshelves, and lamps begins with a period that Estrada describes as a
desert, where " nothing comes up. But it is important you get that time,
remembering that you cannot force anything. " Soon, however, inspiration
hits and Estrada starts drawing his designs, which turn into protoypes to
visualize the ergonomics and structural parts of the product. After that,
production begins.
Layered wood is at the heart of the company's designs, suggesting both
dynamism and lightness. The pieces are often distinguished by ripples that
mimic nature and play with light and shadow, like the pipe-shaped Martin
bench and the stacked Pebbles table, both fashioned out of laminated birch
and spruce.
Although the furniture exudes a heftiness, Estrada wants it to feel
transparent, so that it expresses " movement, or when you see it in different
views, it will change completely, " he points out. " It's like a sculpture, but this
sculpture also has a use. "
Estrada is currently pursuing B Corp certification to cement the brand's
holistically sustainable reputation-from when " the piece was born until it
is delivered, " he adds. An outdoor furniture collection is also in the works,
reinterpreting some of Piegatto's legendary wood designs with hardy
fiberglass so that " the appearance might look similar, but all the edges
and the surfaces will be completely soft, " says Estrada. No matter how the
company grows, he promises, the furniture will always " bring joy to people's
homes. " hd
PIEGATTO.COM
Alejandro Estrada with his son, Pietro, on
Piegatto's Soave sectional, made with 158 vertical
sections of laminated birch and spruce wood
066
August 2023 hospitalitydesign.com
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Hospitality Design - August 2023

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