Lucas Recchia's contemporary designs are all about materiality and spatial presence

"I often joke that the child of a very famous father struggles to find their own place in the world; that is how I see the relationship between Brazilian Modernist and contemporary design," mentions Brazilian designer Lucas Recchia in a press release. "While I admire the legacy of Modernism, I don't understand why a country so rich in natural resources should limit itself to producing furniture that explores only wood." With the intent of exploring Brazilian materials beyond wood, Recchia shapes handcrafted pieces that are the result of unconventional production methods, often unique to him.

Following a showcase at the Milan Design Week 2025, Recchia introduces the Eche seating collection—comprising a sofa design, an armchair and a chaise lounge—along with his other furniture for an upcoming design exhibition titled Crafting the Future, in New York, which will run from May 3 to the middle of June this year.

Born in 1992 on a southern island in Brazil, Recchia is known for exploring materials, especially glass, to shape innovative designs with distinct colours and degrees of transparency. He studied business administration, law, graphic design and advertising before studying architecture in Sâo Paulo, where he started leaning towards furniture design and eventually landed his first solo show at the city's Firma Casa gallery.

"What first drew me to furniture design was the opportunity to experiment—to test materials and processes at a scale that felt immediate and tactile. Unlike architecture, which I studied, furniture allowed for a more direct engagement with matter," Recchia tells STIR. Several collections and experiments later, the designer is currently represented by the Bossa Furniture gallery in New York and Rossana Orlandi in Milan, Italy.

While his earlier work, such as the metal Trípede (2021) table designs featured five distinct patinas, the more recent Janelas (2023) collection of tables is crafted from a combination of Brazilian marble, granite and quartzite inserted with fused glass. Inspired by traditional stained glass technique, Recchia's Material Distortion series (2023-24) of product designs pairs glass with small bronze or aluminium frames. While working with glass, the product designer often stacks 3 mm glass sheets in the kiln, which, upon melting, results in the rounding of edges. By imparting imperfections such as air bubbles and distortions through this process, he achieves his signature aesthetic that identifies several of his contemporary designs.

"The challenge is calculating the exact distance each piece needs to be from the next and determining the precise temperature and duration required for them to 'meet' and create the illusion of fused edges," says Recchia in the press release. "I didn't want a perfectly smooth transition between squares, and achieving that wasn't random. It was carefully engineered."

"Lately, I've been exploring the potential of textiles through the Eche collection, and it has opened up an entirely new language for me. I imagine that fabric, in its many expressive and structural possibilities, will be an important part of my practice in the coming years," he tells STIR. For Eche (2024), the furniture designer steers towards bronze and fabric, playing with texture and colour to create layered, sophisticated designs that prioritise materiality and craftsmanship.

For Recchia, the relevance of his works within a space is not about the aesthetics or the design language of the space, or even the product; what gives his pieces meaning is the way people relate to them. "My work resonates most in places where there is an understanding—or at least a curiosity—about what the object is, how it came to be, and the number of hands and layers involved in its making. It's about presence, not just placement," the designer explains.

It is not so much the function of the designs that intrigues Recchia, but the possibilities of material exploration and the distinct, often unpredictable, transformations that encourage him to experiment further. Recchia's design language keeps changing and evolving with every collection, spotlighting his capabilities of handling a diverse range of materials and ideas. Fusing several materials, textures and techniques, the designer carefully puts together a portfolio of modernist designs that are relevant in the context of Brazil, underlining the changing design landscape within the country.