Escala by Fabio Novembre Carries POINT’s Century of Weaving Into the Present
The weave on an Escala chair moves in a steady rhythm from base to top rail, dense horizontal bands giving way to open grid and closing again. Fabio Novembre built the collection for POINT around an interplay of solid and void, letting the degree of enclosure change with each piece, from a low dining armchair to a lounge chair whose back rises well above the head and flares outward. “Life is a matter of proportion,” the Milan-trained architect and designer explains. “The scale of objects is tied to their function and, as in this collection, also to their degree of privacy.”
Every strand is laid by hand, a method POINT has carried since its founding in a Spanish artisan workshop in 1920. What has changed over four generations is the fiber itself: the rattan, wicker, and Manila cane of the early years have given way to Shintotex, a high-performance fiber developed by the brand for outdoor use, made with 30 percent recycled material and designed to be 100 percent recyclable. In Escala, the innovation carries an old intelligence, proof that a century-long craft can keep evolving without loosening its grip.
A Woven Family
Novembre started with the High Back Lounge Chair, whose sinuous profile set the formal language for the rest of the collection: a rocking chair, a lower lounge chair, a dining armchair, a round coffee table wrapped in matching latticework, and a swing hung from a freestanding white frame. Throughout, the latticework carries the structure, setting how fully each piece encloses the body and giving the family a shared cadence that never grows heavy. The designer sums up the concept in a single image: “Escala is an embrace, a hug that holds users in a timeless weave.”
The relationship between objects and the people and places around them anchors the work of Novembre. “Design is all about empathy, about understanding and helping each other,” he says. Escala carries that outlook into POINT’s Outdoor Privilege concept, which shapes open-air settings around time, wellbeing, and connection. Arranged across a terrace or a lawn, the pieces let each person decide how exposed to remain, from a dining armchair at a shared table to the High Back Lounge Chair, where the woven back screens the head and shoulders. “A kind of modular diagram that grows with the need to escape the gaze of others,” Novembre explains. “A double interlacing that rhythmically conceals or reveals, leaving us free to be either the subject or the object of the gaze.”
Built to Endure
Hospitality projects for Four Seasons, Shangri-La, and The Langham, in cities from Dubai to Paris, feature POINT’s furniture, and the company’s material range now extends to aluminum, outdoor textiles, certified woods, and other technical solutions. In 2019, POINT received Spain’s National Design Award for its contribution to society and quality of life. Through all of that growth, POINT has kept its artisans at the core of the work, and Escala depends entirely on their skill. “Weaving always reminds me of the slow patience of gifted hands, ancient gestures passed down from generation to generation,” Novembre says. “I believe in the magic of craftsmanship and my design is a celebration of it.”
Each Escala piece leaves the workshop carrying two inheritances: a technique handed down within the family and a profile drawn for contemporary outdoor living, rendered in Shintotex. Novembre gives weight to both. “I have a lot of respect for anything that stands the test of time, the lifespan of a company is a value,” he says. “But I also believe that our task is to testify to our own time, give it a shape.”
