The designers Stefano Panterotto and Alexis Tourron have made a name for themselves in recent years with projects such as ‘Couch in an Envelope’ or ‘Diurno’ and have also collaborated intensively with Airbnb on the topic of the future of living. Now they have partnered with Vitra to develop the Anagram Sofa, whose layout can be reinvented time and again.

Once a home is well furnished, it usually remains this way for many years – even if technological and social changes have long since altered everyday living. In past decades, for example, communal activities within the home – and living room furnishings – were centred around the television. Today, however, people put together their own individual entertainment programme on mobile devices, and the home has taken on a greater variety of uses than ever before, which was especially true during the pandemic.

Reflecting new realities in furnishings and products is an interesting challenge for designers, architects and furniture manufacturers. One solution is adaptability: interiors should be easy to transform from one activity to another, for movie and game nights, exercising, relaxing, sleeping, reading, cocktail hour and much more. Ideally, this involves lightweight, movable furniture that can be easily adapted. Lifestyles are also changing and the traditional family model, where people get married and buy a house in which they start a family and then later retire, is becoming less and less the norm. Instead, families today are mobile, moving house and changing in composition – patchwork constellations are increasingly common.

Buying a new sofa is a big investment and often a difficult process; the shape and size have to be tailored to the current living room. ‘What if these decisions could be simplified by a product that is so easy to customise that it feels like an assortment of possibilities rather than a compulsory purchase?’ With this question in mind, Vitra approached designers Stefano Panterotto and Alexis Tourron.

The result is the Anagram Sofa, a family made up of a few modules and elements that can be used to quickly respond to the needs of the moment as well as major life changes. In the words of Panter&Tourron: ‘A sofa is an important character in the home and usually one of the largest objects. It’s very important that it can evolve with you, otherwise you won’t enjoy a long life together.’ The Anagram platform modules are therefore designed as islands that can be combined with other modules on all four sides and fitted with elements such as backrests, side panels and attachable tables. Thanks to a click mechanism, these elements can be freely positioned anywhere on the platform and rearranged in a matter of seconds. This allows for countless configurations and easy layout changes – from a classic L-shaped sofa or small reading nook to a practical sleeping area for guests, from a flat island-like meeting point in the centre of the room or formal waiting area to an S-shaped configuration promoting communication or a cosy retreat and many other possibilities.

Thanks to these features the Anagram Sofa is the perfect tool for modern companies whose office environments are constantly evolving. Here a sofa – used for spontaneous meetings, quiet retreats, etc. – can only remain relevant if it is as dynamic as its surroundings and easily adaptable to changing circumstances.

‘A normal sofa is like a heavy fossilised being in which a wide variety of materials are glued together, including animal-based substances and vast quantities of plastic,’ explain Panter&Tourron. This goes against Vitra’s development guidelines, which stipulate the separability of materials, modularity, ease of disassembly, reparability, understated design and much more. Another thing was also clear to the designers: the product had to be vegan. Anagram fulfils all these requirements: the softly comfortable and inviting cushions are filled with 100% recycled PET fibres and contain zero animal-based padding. The fabric covers are easy to remove for cleaning or replacement. The robust, lightweight frame is made of aluminium with 80% recycled content and, like all Anagram components, is separate from other materials – nothing is glued, laminated or foamed. This means that the individual components, which are manufactured from recycled materials wherever possible, can be easily separated at the end of the product’s life and recycled again.

Design can respond to social and cultural changes. The Bauhaus movement in Germany, for example, was exactly that: a reaction to the late-Victorian pandemics and dirty industrialised cities, aiming to invent a fresh, bright, clean, new reality. Anagram is the sofa solution that cleverly embodies current lifestyle changes. This is achieved through its comfort and engineering, functionality and aesthetics.