Sustainibility as comfort experience

Eco-design and research: 

Thanks to its daily effort for make people feel good, Calia Italia becomes part of the “inspired companies” that work in order to spread out the so called “circular economy” , i.e. an economic format able to regenerate itself by re-using old materials and reducing waste. 

Sustainability, eco-design and research are the biggest issues of today, the driving force of a righteous and necessary changing. Under Calia Italia’s point of view, sustainability represents a real comfort experience: presenting a benefit to the Earth is not only good for the environment but also for people. 

In order to achieve this goal, the company creates eco-design projects and products, such as U’Strozz and Ferula. 

U’Strozz is the eco-friendly footstool made of all the scraps obtained from the production process, re-used so as to give them a new life.

Its name comes from the dialect spoken in the area of Matera and it literally means “the rags”.

This colourful occasional seat is made of various polyurethane layers, each covered with coloured leathers or fabrics and kept together by a book stool. The result is a product that is not only original and comfortable, but also eco-friendly.

Each piece is unique, since during the production process the artisan can only use the materials available at that moment, using all his creativity. The result will be an uncopyable product, born only from the emotions of a moment. Moreover, the aim of this unique product is to give value to something that only apparently is useless. 

A second example of Calia Italia’s eco-design is Ferula. 

It is born from the collaboration with young designers from Basilicata and Apulia and students from the Politecnico of Milan, in occasion of the initiative called “M/I/M D D – Mobile Imbottito Matera Design District”. 

Ferula takes inspiration from Matera, from its landscapes and from the lifestyle of the men and women who used to live in the ancient neighbourhoods of Matera, called Sassi. 

An ambitious project that is the result of different “creative forces”, like the love for its land and its community and the cooperation between University and workplace. 

The structure of this model, made of wood, recalls the spool of the sewing machine and its backrest consists of a typical material of the Murgia area, the Ferula communis, i.e. an herbaceous plant that grows on the rocky landscapes of this region. 

Once again, the added value is its sustainability: in the patchwork version, just like U’Strozz, Ferula is made of the scraps of the production process in order to achieve an easier disposal of materials, giving them a new life.

Ferula and U’Strozz represent at the best the position taken by Calia Italia in favour of environment awareness; the respect of the raw material is crucial and so it is for the workers, thus converting each artisan into an artist. Doing this each product takes the signature of its creator.