As the creative director of the family owned Italian furniture company Moroso, Patrizia Moroso has spent much of her career nuturing new talent. She's helped propel designers from Ron Arad to Tokujin Yoshioka onto the global stage by commisioning daringly designed chairs, tables and sofas from these designers. 

Another designer whom Moroso has supported is Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola. Moroso comissioned Urquiola to design her own home - the outcome of which is a surprisingly serene and airy structure with colorful, welcoming interiors. On the outside, cedar siding and deep red trim make the 10,000-square-foot structure almost disappear into its heavily wooded setting; on the inside, ample windows let nature into the sheltering spaces.

Some of the furniture is one of a kind, like the painted metal chairs by Ron Arad, but there are Moroso prototypes, too, like the Rift sofa by Urquiola covered in African fabric, which sprawls in the downstairs sitting room. Some pieces are simply rejects, like the Arad-designed plastic Ripple chairs on the terrace. Their colors, muddled in the molding process, made them even more appealing to Moroso. “I like the ‘strange’ version,” she explained, “the mistakes from the factory, the unique pieces made by the industrial process.” Her house, she said, is “sort of a testing place for me,” and “an extension of what I do.”

Moroso furniture is available locally here.