The Beauty Of Unpredictability

Bocci’s founder and creative director Omer Arbel pushes the boundaries of design through experimentation, research and collaboration.

Bocci’s brainchild Omer Arbel and his team are involved in materials research, lighting design, building design, site specific installations and a host of other projects. The design studio and manufacturer based in Vancouver, Canada, is dedicated to cultivating a lateral and open-ended relationship between creative direction and craft. Eleanor Smith, Bocci’s sales director who visited Space Furniture in Singapore earlier this year, tells us more about the brand’’s new projects and philosophy.

bocci’s showcase in Milan fair 2024

Bocci launched a permanent Italian base in Milan during Milan Design Week 2023. The apartment, located in an early 20th-century building in Zona Vincenzo Monti, offers longterm programming and provides visitors with an in-depth experience of the brand and its ecosystem.

“We’ve been exhibiting in Milan for the past 10 to 15 years. We want people to be able to live in our work. That was the whole concept of this space. And the idea was also to not produce so much waste, like the way short term exhibitions are set up at the convention centre, and then you have to throw all the materials away. We decided it is a privilege to be able to invest in the city itself and actually purchase property that we can continue to reinvigorate every year,” says Smith.