Rubber furniture debuts
A design studio called Atelier Fomenta is showing a rubber‑furniture collection at Milan Design Week, pushing tactile, unconventional materials into interiors coverage. (wallpaper.com)
Atelier Fomenta, a Montréal studio founded in 2022, is bringing a collection of rubber tables, shelving and lamps to Milan Design Week 2026. (wallpaper.com) The studio is led by Julia Arvelo, Florence Barnabé and Muriel Bentolila, and it makes its pieces by hand in Montréal with local artisans. Its practice centers on industrial materials such as rubber, steel and aluminum rather than the wood, upholstery and stone more common in home interiors. (atelierfomenta.com) Milan Design Week runs across the city from April 20 to 26, 2026, with exhibitions, installations, talks and showroom events layered around the Salone del Mobile fair. Fuorisalone’s official guide says more than 1,055 events are listed for this year’s edition. (dezeen.com) (fuorisalone.it) Rubber usually shows up in domestic design as flooring, seals or utility parts, not as the visible structure of a bookshelf or table. Wallpaper reports that Atelier Fomenta cuts, folds and rivets rubber “almost like fabric” to make tactile furniture and lighting. (wallpaper.com) That approach has been developing for months, not days. Earlier in 2026, the studio showed rubber lamps and furniture at “Pot-au-feu,” a group exhibition presented by the Quebec collective Ensemble at DesignTO Festival. (wallpaper.com) One of the clearest examples is the Rubber Libraries shelving series, which Sixtysix Magazine described as made from a black rubber sheet and aluminum rivets with no hidden frame or metal armature. Arvelo said that project took more than a year to refine from concept to final product. (sixtysixmag.com) Arvelo told Sixtysix the team came to treat sheet rubber more like textile or leather, using cutting and riveting methods that echo garment construction and button-tufted upholstery. That production logic lets the studio keep fabrication in house instead of handing the work to an outside manufacturer. (sixtysixmag.com) Other designers have also been testing rubber as a refined interior material rather than a purely industrial one. Wallpaper points to Rich Aybar’s LS Gomma and Study O Portable as recent examples, placing Atelier Fomenta inside a wider materials shift already visible in design media and exhibitions. (wallpaper.com) In Milan next week, that means a material better known for grip, padding and weatherproofing will be asked to read as furniture first. Atelier Fomenta’s bet is that rubber can hold weight, hold shape and still look at home in a room. (sixtysixmag.com) (wallpaper.com)
