How Andreu World and Patricia Urquiola are designing for a more circular furniture industry

The long-standing union between Andreu World and Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola shows why shared commitment to circularity – and change – is key to sustainable design.

As Andreu World approaches its 70th anniversary next year, the Valencian-born furniture manufacturer is doubling down on its sustainability efforts, commissioning and supporting projects concerned with circularity and eco-innovation. Beyond pledging to having all of its materials and processes part of the circular economy – and becoming carbon-neutral – by 2025, it is taking its commitment further with the Circular Design Challenge, an initiative aimed at helping more sector partners in achieving these goals. But Andreu World’s attentiveness for sustainable design practices can also be seen clearly in individual products, too – and in the relationships it has with leading designers today.

Over a decade in the making, the company’s partnership with Spanish designer and architect Patricia Urquiola has always looked to the sustainable. Nub, Urquiola’s first collection for Andreu World, utilized renewable resources and 100% FSC®-certified wood to craft seating celebrating traceability of material. That was in 2011. Now, nearly 15 years on, the conversation continues with the Bolete BIO® collection, originally a modular sofa system that has newly been extended with fresh chair designs and a multipurpose table. It’s name comes from a type of mushroom, with the fungi’s bulbous forms and gilled stems reflected in the pieces. The pieces were presented during Fuorisalone 2024, at Andreu World’s Milan showroom.

Patricia Urquiola’s Bolete BIO® collection for Andreu World embodies extensive research into biomaterials, with bioplastic bases nodding to the gilled stems of mushrooms.

Andreu World is an ideal partner for Urquiola for developing these collections, she says, because of the team’s big-picture perspective and willingness to adapt to arrive at more sustainable results. ‘When companies are very contract-oriented, it can limit the point of view, so it’s important for them to zoom out and stay open to new methods,’ she says, reflecting on the responsibility designers have to advocate for more circular production themselves.

Looking at Bolete BIO® as an example, Urquiola explains the new possibilities that can emerge by adopting the philosophy that designing more sustainably is not just an obligation, but an opportunity. ‘After doing research on biomaterials, Andreu World and I have been able to approach design elements differently. The new collection incorporates bioplastic legs. You can combine and arrange the pieces in various ways to create sculptural scenes.’

Being intentional about sustainability goals and embracing iteration are two ways of producing stronger collections, she thinks. ‘Many times you are in the midst of a project, and then you have to consider how to make things circular, or rethink a material, for example. There are a lot of beginnings and re-beginnings. But you also need to understand where to stop a project – when it’s okay. By designing, I’m creating my relationship with the world.’

Ultimately, that relationship needs to be a sustainable one. And it’s only through value-driven collaborations between manufacturers and designers – like that of Urquiola and Andreu World – that the industry will see meaningful shifts toward circularity. In conversations with partners, ‘You have to find the spaces where the limits aren’t too well-defined, spaces where a real dialogue about sustainability can happen,’ Urquiola points out. ‘To make people believe in you, you have to believe in what you are asking someone. You have to be brave enough to convince. In that way, design is a long, continuous conversation.’