Spotlight on the HAY Palissades Series.

Though only first introduced in 2015, it’s no stretch to suggest that the HAY Palissades range is anything other than a modern design classic. 

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Designed by hyper-talented, multi-hyphenate siblings Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, the Palissade collection of outdoor furniture may be less than a decade old, but it has quickly become a popular mainstay of the designer furniture landscape, featuring on the terraces of cafes and in beautiful gardens around the world. 

A sense of simplicity sits at the heart of the design, with uncomplicated steel frames gifting the objects with a sense of sophisticated durability. Described by the brothers as being aesthetically “strong without being bulky; elegant without being fragile”, the Palissades series is at once both soft and hard, visually delicate but hardwearing and durable. Uniform steel tubes are present throughout the whole collection, while slatted bases are invisibly fused to create tabletops and seats, the latter of which are disarmingly comfortable and perfectly suited to all-day lounging. It’s long-lasting in all senses of the term, both endearing design and enduring design.

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Sharing a common design principle of symmetrical geometry, the Palissade collection features a graphic and instantly impactful aesthetic that is, put simply, hugely appealing. The range is available in a number of colour-ways, from neutral anthracite to an exposed hot galvanised steel finish that demands attention, but it’s the olive green finish that truly stands out. Reminiscent of the iconic green chairs that sit in public parks across Paris, the olive Palissade lounge chair is a modern classic, which has inspired a raft of imposters. 

The wider effect on the industry has been notable too, with studios and design houses more keenly focussed on the potential of open-air spaces, further cementing this notion of the Bourellac’s creation as something of an epoch-defining piece of furniture. Described by Elle Decor as having “elevated the status of outdoor furniture for good”, the HAY Palissades family has changed the way that we look at terrace furniture. No longer an afterthought, and aided partially by the pandemic years reminding people of how important a personalised outdoor space could be, design aficionados are putting the the same kind of long-form consideration into their outside areas as they do their living room, or kitchen. 

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Designer Spotlight: Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec

The Bouroullec brothers emerged from an unassuming farming community in Brittany in the late 1990s, and have since gone on to become known as one of the great forces in contemporary design, and a pair of true polymaths who are somehow able to turn their hands to a wide variety of skills. 

Alongside their design for Palissade Ronan and Erwan have created pieces for brands and design houses as diverse as Vitra and Samsung, while many of their objects are housed in the permanent collections of art galleries such as the London Design Museum and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, while in 2021 the Philadelphia Museum Of Art hosted “Circus”, a career-wide retrospective of their complete oeuvre, in which Palissades took a prominent position. In addition to their design work both brothers are accomplished artists, with their paintings and drawings gracing the walls of design conscious homes globally. Declared by Kvadrat CEO Anders Byriel to be “the Charles and Ray Eames of our time”, the influence and impact of the Bouroullec’s body of work can be seen and felt in the design world and beyond, and, thanks to the Palissade series, in outdoor spaces across the land.

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An extensive collection of pieces from the HAY Palissades series is available from Utility Design today, as are other objects from the Bouroullec brothers.

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