Yellow contemporary vase, handcrafted in Italy by COKI

With her eponymous housewares label, Italian product and architecture designer Coki Barbieri brings to life a new approach to natural materials through forms inspired by rationalist architecture and the morphologies of animal and plant kingdoms. The studio and design laboratory is located on the first hills of Rimini, overlooking the Adriatic Sea and surrounded by thick spontaneous vegetation, in which every little creature of the area is a constant source of inspiration. The geometries and connections between the elements are first designed with cardboard and cork prototypes, then defined with hand drawings and digitally. Handicraft production aims to recover local raw materials and preserve ancient working stone, glass, and metal methods. Combining notions of geology, chemistry, and design culture, COKI also offers new materials, starting from fragments and scraps of stone and mineral processing. Together with the craftsmen, Coki has developed a waste-free production and logistics chain. The production cycle exploits the sun and air's power to create many components of the projects, thus offsetting a part of the CO2 emissions due to borosilicate glass and stainless steel processing. In 2020 the brand won the Green Product Award and was internationally recognized for its sustainable and ethical approach to product design.