Novembre rocks

Fabio Novembre has designed for Busnelli Regolo, a sofa characterised by linear volumes and bold details

Regolo by Busnelli, design Fabio Novembre
Regolo by Busnelli, design Fabio Novembre

Square volumes, a steel blade as a support foot and black leather to create contrasting details. These are the fundamental characteristics of the new sofa designed by Fabio Novembre for Busnelli. “I know the company since I was a boy,” Fabio Novembre tells us when we meet him at the Busnelli booth at the Salone del Mobile.Milano, “and when they came to me with the request to give a rock imprint to the relaunch of the brand on the market, I took up the challenge with pleasure.” “They told me: ‘We want rock sofas’, a specific and courageous request.” 

Fabio Novembre - Photo © Livio Mancinelli
Fabio Novembre – Photo © Livio Mancinelli
Regolo by Busnelli, design Fabio Novembre

“Being the rockiest of them all, I made the most minimal sofa of all,” Novembre continues. “It almost came naturally to me to balance: I always do the crazy things, so if they ask me to rock, I want to do it on the details.” The sofa designed for Busnelli is full of very well thought-out details: from the steel foot that rests on the floor, which is a sort of sword, a dry and essential blade that lightens the structure, through the use of velvet combined with traditional fabric, to the decorative element of the monogram, a strip of fabric customised with the Busnelli monogram, which outlines the silhouette of the cushions, accentuating their character.

“In my opinion, you can do a crazy job on the details,” explains the designer. “Also because, we have to admit that innovating on the sofa is no easy thing,” he continues. “So, it is important to work on the details: on the foam of the backrest we worked a lot, thinking of arriving at a shape that the public would be able to perceive with immediacy, but with studied details.” 

The name chosen for this sofa, Regolo, evokes the parallelepipeds used to learn mathematics as children: linear and pure geometric shapes, different in size, colour and value. Similarly, Regolo’s square or rectangular elements have different volumes and functions, and can be freely assembled to create compositions that meet the needs of the environments in which they are placed. 

Accessorisable and removable, in both the leather and fabric versions, Regolo is equipped with a handy storage unit and double-sided cushions that change the rhythm of the backrest and allow the depth of the seat to be altered.