Valcucine was the winner of two awards at the 2022 Good Design Awards, the oldest and world’s most recognized program for design excellence worldwide, issued by the Chicago Athenaeum, Museum for Architecture and Design.

Artematica Soft Outline (cover image) and Riciclantica Outline collections, designed by Gabriele Centazzo, were awarded for being the most innovative and cutting-edge kitchens in the world.

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The award is given to the most innovative industrial products of the year by the Chicago Athenaeum, Museum of Architecture and Design, promoted by the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

Founded in Chicago in 1950 by Eero Saarinen and Charles and Ray Eames, the Good Design Awards remains the oldest and the world’s most recognized program for design excellence.

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The jury, consisting of industry professionals and experts, industry specialists, and trade media, bases its decisions on the same original criteria as in 1950 regarding innovation, form, materials, construction, concept, function, utility, sustainability, and aesthetics.

Riciclantica® Outline and Artematica® Soft Outline were selected from over 1,100 product designs and graphics from over 55 nations for sustainability, superior design, and unparalleled function.

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Artematica Soft Outline

Continuous lines integration of volumes sinuosity

design by Gabriele Centazzo

Intuition, and the possibility of using 'pure', unpaired materials on the aluminium structure of the doors, open up to infinite solutions and combinations. From the refined play of glass, in every colour and finish, to woods with strong tactile sensations, from lacquered surfaces to metal surfaces.

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The Artematica® kitchen has been studied in detail to make gestures simpler and more casual, closures soft, and to comply with the highest safety standards through rounding along edges and profiles.

Today, the result of creative research aimed at achieving a pure volume, the Artematica Soft Outline kitchen looks like a single block in which the top, doors, and side panels are integrated into a harmonious, continuous whole, embellished with a metal profile. The “pure volume” effect of Artematica Soft Outline can be created with some finishes such as Vitrum – Valcucine glass in glossy and matte versions – ceramic, marble and the revolutionary Carbontec sintered stone.

The delicate, curvy line that runs along the kitchen edges defines its volume, as well as highlights the seamlessness of its surfaces. This line complements the image of the kitchen with refined elegance. 

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Its clean, minimalist design is the result of advanced creativity and precise and careful processing techniques. Made using cutting-edge technologies, the slim anodized aluminium profiles – available in black, copper, and bronze – become stylistic details that add refinement to the arrangement.

The search for new means of expression that enhance the perception of a pure volume produces a poetically elegant space in which rigour and softness meet in fine balance. 

Completing the kitchen layout is the new Insula bamboo counter, with a tapered profile and rounded corners in line with the sinuosity of the Soft Outline profile. The 30° chamfer on the perimeter of the table allows us to perceive the edge that is just 6 mm thick. The peculiar fixing system, through special brackets, allows for a gap between the breakfast bar itself and the base unit’s volume, giving an additional feeling of lightness.

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Riciclantica Outline

The beauty of a protected edge

design by Gabriele Centazzo

"For years I have been looking for a philosophy of forms capable of representing Man in the 2000s, regardless of fads; a stable philosophy that isn’t subject to continuously changing colours, lines, and surfaces.

I think this philosophy - which should become the foundation of the design and architecture of the third millennium - should be based on the dematerialisation of products visually expressed by representing Flight and Lightness”

With these words, designer Gabriele Centazzo expresses the strong philosophical basis of the Riciclantica® collection. Dematerialization, the ethical imperative at the heart of Valcucine design, reaches its highest expression here: on the aluminium frame - resistant to water, steam, and heat - the lightest and thinnest door in the world with only 2 mm thickness is inserted, which saves up to 85 per cent of material compared to a traditional 2 cm door.

Valcucine’s continuous research and evolution rise to a straight, terse profile that runs along the edges of the kitchen and becomes the distinguishing element of the new Riciclantica Outline arrangement.

Formal perfection combines with the practicality of use: the protected edge strengthens materials while increasing their resistance

The grip recesses – Riciclantica’s hallmark – cut across base unit surfaces, setting off the result of our pursuit of utmost dematerialization, letting you perceive the extreme slimness – only 2 mm – of the lightest door in the world.

This model’s pure lines can be enhanced by matching the door, top, and side panel finishes. A stylistic choice that makes it possible to create a unit finished in a single material, for perfectly clean visual results.

In harmony with the Riciclantica design philosophy, Valcucine proposes a new shelving system that defines and articulates spaces without closing them: even if it is used to separate the environment, it maintains an open-space layout.

The system has been studied to obtain maximum design flexibility: in addition to free installation, the shelving system can be used back-to-wall, with a light-up back panel, suspended from the ceiling with the possibility of integrating the hood or simply as an open wall unit. 

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