French designer Sam Baron worked together with De La Espada to create Ensemble, a wooden seating collection that marks the Portuguese furniture brand’s first venture into collectible design.

De La Espada presented the Ensemble collection at collectible design fair Lisbon by Design, where the tree trunk-shaped and “moss”-clad seating took centre stage.

The Ensemble collection is made of walnut wood

The pieces, made from solid walnut and ceramics, were the result of a session in which Baron worked with eight members of De La Espada’s design team at the brand’s workshop in Portugal. Together, they created quick drawings of seating that came to form the base of the project.

“The idea was ‘let’s speak together, and let’s find a way to make a very unique project'”, Baron told Dezeen during Lisbon by Design.

It includes the high-backed Tronco chair (pictured in the centre)

The resulting collection came about in an organic way.

“One of [the people in the workshop] did a very quick drawing, and it looked a bit like this chair, which is for me, a reference to wood trunks,” Baron said, nodding to the Tronco high-backed chair.

“A wooden trunk is the first thing you see when you arrive at the La Espada workshop – I was like, why didn’t I think about the trunk before?” he added. “And it looked like an African chair, a very simple gesture made from a wooden piece.”

A colour scheme of browns and greens decorates the pieces

That first chair became the starting point for the full Ensemble collection, which features six pieces including a sofa, a daybed and sculptural stools.

“At that point, the connection to trees appeared,” De La Espada co-founder Luis De Oliveira told Dezeen.

“Up until then, they were all thinking about sitting: how to sit, where to sit and how we feel when we sit right. But then a second layer appeared, which is this connection to the trees.”

The Toro daybed looks like a carved-out tree trunk

That connection is “super important,” Baron added.

“It’s something that De La Espada is really careful about, trying to respect the planet. The idea was that if we’re using trees, it’s like a little forest.”

Other pieces that reference the forest include the Toro daybed, which resembles a tree trunk lying on the forest floor and features curved sides, moss-like padded seating and a small “log” underneath the body of the daybed.

The curvy Musgo sofa was designed to look like it has been overgrown with moss and also has an integrated solid-wood stool.

“We redid the sofa three times because we wanted to reach this very mossy comfort, still having the piece of wood that was coming out of it, and then the moss took it over – like a princess-bed of moss,” Baron said.

“Moss” decorates the Musgo sofa

Some of the seats have textures and patterns that reference tree bark, while the colour palette for the Ensemble collection features forest green, brown and tan hues.

To De Oliveira, the way the collection was designed, with Baron collaborating with De La Espada’s team, represents a more innovative way of working.

“If you look at the design industry as it’s become big money, it’s become more conservative,” he said.

Sam Baron worked with De La Espada’s team on the collection

“When I hear people explain how they got to something, it tends to be quite dull, because it was probably the result of a brief provided by marketing or by sales,” he added.

“And here you have the total opposite – you have experimentation and throwing yourself at an adventure, something that I think many other companies don’t do anymore.”

It was showcased at collectible fair Lisbon by Design

Due to the “complexity” of the designs, the Ensemble collection will only be produced in 20 units for each design, De La Espada said.

Previous designs by the brand include a dining chair created with architecture studio Neri&Hu and a theatrical performance in a Stockholm apartment.

The photography is by Inês Silva.

Lisbon by Design took place from 21 to 25 May at Gomes Freire Palace, Rua Gomes Freire 98, Lisbon, Portugal. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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