Perin & Topan and the sixty-millimetre decision

Some design statements are loud; this one is sixty millimetres thick. When Perin & Topan drew the New Loop desk for IVM, they specified a 60 mm top — a deliberate authorial decision that gives an executive desk the rank of cabinet furniture, not a plank on legs. It is typical of the duo: Gianantonio Perin and Giorgio Topan, IUAV-trained architects in practice together since 1991, argue through sections and tolerances rather than manifestos.

Their executive programmes for Frezza — Digit, Forma, Ono, Spike, plus the Vogue reception — apply the same logic across whole rooms. All three houses they draw for sit in the catalogue La Mercanti distributes: specifiers get the thinking, delivered as furniture.