Knoll Textiles’ revival of Sheila Hicks’s Altiplano finds an unexpected counterpart in Philippe Malouin’s Trench armchair for Acerbis, a piece that feels carved from silence and structure. With its bold, grounded presence and almost geological form, Trench translates Malouin’s fascination with volume into something tactile and immediate.
FURNITURE
Fully upholstered from base to edge, the chair looks monolithic yet surprisingly human. Its sculpted geometry absorbs light differently depending on angle and texture, giving the impression of architecture made soft. The meeting of Hicks’s woven intensity with Malouin’s precision doesn’t feel decorative, it’s a tension that gives the piece depth, like a landscape shaped by pressure and time.
Curated by PIN–UP, the collaboration balances two design philosophies: one born from ancient weaving traditions, the other from a modernist impulse to strip form to its essence. The result is furniture that behaves like sculpture, functional, but self-aware of its visual power.
Photographed against the volcanic terrain of Mount Etna, Trench looks right at home, monumental, still, and alive in texture. It’s furniture for those who treat a chair not as a seat, but as a spatial experience.
Discover more about the collaboration and Malouin’s design process now on ArchiSCENE.net.
