The engineer behind the drawing: Giovanni Baccolini

Plenty of designers hand a factory a beautiful sketch and wish it luck. Giovanni Baccolini delivers the engineering with it. Born in Bologna in 1956 and qualified as an industrial technician, he began by designing bicycles and motorcycles, then spent twenty years supplying polyurethane components — through Ilpo's Integrali division — to Knoll International, Poltrona Frau and Olivetti Synthesis. By the time he opened Studio Omega in 1992, he knew precisely what a production line can and cannot do, and his projects have carried that knowledge ever since.

That double competence now serves Ares Line and Lamm, two seating specialists in the portfolio La Mercanti works with every week, and recently placed him alongside Studio Pininfarina on the X-Ten project. Specify a Baccolini piece and you inherit a drawing the toolmakers have already approved.