Header: Courtesy of Fast (Unduetre Collection)
Outdoor design this year is all about bringing indoor comfort to the garden, and that can only be achieved with the perfect furniture. While designers are still careful to use materials and create designs that are able to survive harsher conditions, this doesn’t mean that the gardens, terraces and balconies need to suffer a lack of style and relaxation.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Birdie Fortescue
Now, there is more attention to how a fabric feels against the skin in warm weather, to how a chair sits in a corner of a terrace and to how materials complement the plants and stone. Are you the type of person who likes to enjoy an orange juice in the morning and cocktails with friends in the evening? Then the market has you covered, as flexibility and modularity have been thoroughly embraced in the outdoor furniture industry.
A lot of the change can be seen in the use of texture, as fabrics need to breathe, dry well after use and avoid the sticky, synthetic feel often associated with older outdoor furniture. The structure of the furniture has also evolved, as frames are becoming lighter and less visually bulky. Rounded shapes, simple lines and warmer tones make the intimate outdoors feel like the perfect spot to hang out for a while.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Grythyttan Stålmöbler
These shifts can be found across collections from NUMA, Birdie Fortescue, Fast, Grythyttan Stålmöbler and String Furniture, showing that modern outdoor furniture can take on multiple creative looks. Some pieces are built around softness and comfort, others around colour and structure, but they all treat the garden as an extension of the home.
Birdie Fortescue’s Vasanti Collection
While Birdie Fortescue’s new Vasanti Collection includes more than just furniture, the focus here is on its outdoor pieces, the Curato Garden Dining Collection. Designed for both indoor and outdoor living, the collection takes its name from the Sanskrit word for “springtime” and brings together vivid patterns, rich textures and bold colours.
In this collection, customers can choose from a variety of weatherproof, rattan-inspired furniture for gardens and terraces. The dining table and chairs are made from lightweight aluminium, a material chosen for outdoor durability, but it gives the impression of antique rattan due to their pattern and natural colours.
NUMA’s modular furniture
NUMA is a British furniture brand focused on contemporary outdoor pieces, with a collection designed to make gardens and terraces feel closer to the comfort of an interior. The furniture uses high-performance fabrics that are soft to the touch and engineered for breathability, allowing air to circulate and reducing the sticky heat build-up often associated with synthetic outdoor furniture pieces.
Photo credit: Courtesy of NUMA
Photo credit: Courtesy of NUMA
The collection is built around modularity, so the layout of the garden can change depending on how the space is being used. Individual seats can work as armchairs for a quieter moment outside, perhaps with a coffee in hand, then be moved together to form a larger daybed or a sofa for guests. The pieces have rounded silhouettes, which gives the collection a softer presence in the garden that intentionally complements the shapes of plants and trees.
Photo credit: Courtesy of NUMA
Photo credit: Courtesy of NUMA
Fast’s Unduetre and Naca collections
Fast’s new outdoor collections, both modular systems, bring a new vision for the traditional outdoor sofas (Unduetre) and tables (Naca) under the creative direction of Francesco Meda and David Lopez Quincoces.
Unduetre is a modular sofa with a hidden mechanism inside the cushioning, allowing the backrest and armrest to move and change position. This lets the sofa turn from a more conventional seating form into a larger, island-like setup, making it easier to adapt the same piece for different moments outside. Naca is a table collection defined by aluminium legs made through extrusion and die-casting, with different heights available across the range. The tabletops come in various shapes and materials, allowing them to suit different outdoor spaces and uses. The collection has now been expanded with round coffee tables in several sizes and heights.
Grythyttan Stålmöbler’s traditional chairs
Grythyttan Stålmöbler is a Swedish outdoor furniture maker that works with steel and timber to create timeless designs. The brand made its first chair, the A2, in 1930 for the Stockholm Exhibition, and its spring-steel frames are still manufactured today at the factory in Grythyttan.
More recently, the Libelle series, designed by Norwegian designer Andreas Engesvik, introduces a lighter, more recognisable Scandinavian style. The Brewery series is one of the most traditional recent collections, as it takes its roots from the beer houses of the late 1800s, using solid hot-galvanised steel bases with wooden slats in finishes such as teak, oiled oak and white-lacquered oak.
String Furniture and outdoor organisation
String Furniture is known for its modular shelving systems that can be adapted to gardens, balconies and terraces, taking on virtually whichever look the customer wants. Simple in look and feel, as they are built with galvanised panels and metal shelves, they offer an easy solution for outdoor storage. The shelves come in different widths and depths, which means that, as we’ve seen, they can be arranged as smaller or larger combinations depending on the size of the balcony, patio or garden – or even landing dock. Flexibility is the promise made here, as these freestanding shelves can be placed anywhere that offers a steady ground.
Nowadays, outdoor furniture feels more connected to everyday living, offering the chance to slow down for a while and enjoy the benefits of having a private oasis at home. It still has to deal with weather, heat and use, but it now does so with the comfort and style normally expected inside the home.
