Light work: New-old material raises design possibilities

Milan–ECAL graduates Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard and Philippe-Albert Lefebvre have launched their TP-Panels^TM, which fuse 15th-century techniques with modern materials.

In the wonderfully historic Spazio Orso, luminous yellow, red and sky blue TP-Panels^TM – the TP stands for ‘Terrazzo Project’ – were piled like playing cards to create a striking totemic structure reminiscent of the Memphis-inspired Neo-Kitsch direction. Huge posters showing the panels floating like clouds over trippy mountains showed a graphic direction that was at once Neo-Kitsch and Futurist Montage.

‘Terrazzo is a part of Italy’s history, and we wanted to update it as a material to allow for greater possibilities within furniture and outdoor design,’ explains Halmaï-Voissard. Made of resin cement and stone aggregates, the pieces are cast on to honeycomb-shaped corrugated aluminium sheets, making them 50% lighter than traditional terrazzo slabs and significantly stronger, allowing for elongated shapes without the need for support beams.