Before the Season Opens: Four Outdoor Loungers
Terraces in Dubai come back into use from the far end of the day. By the time the season turns, the furniture has already been chosen.
Dima Ghanem
Senior Architect and Interior Designer at Dantone Home
«Indoors, a piece is judged the moment it arrives. Outdoors it is judged in August, and again in February, and again by whoever is still lying on it after everyone else has gone in. That is a longer test than any showroom can stage, and it is the only one that counts. What survives it tends to be simple: the right height, a fabric that dries, a frame that has nothing to loosen.»
Taormina: Two Colourways, One Frame
Laure Grezard designed the Taormina lounger under the art direction of James Patterson. The weave across the backrest carries the design: it has real volume, and it reads from a distance as texture rather than as pattern. Underneath sits a powder-coated aluminium frame with anti-UV synthetic ropes, and the cushion lifts off on a zip. The backrest adjusts.
Emerald and Haze Sandy are the same piece in two registers. The green sets itself against planting and pulls a lounger forward from a hedge or a row of palms. The sand tone settles into pale render and stone and lets the deck stay quiet.
At 198 cm long and 78 cm wide this is the largest of the four, and the seat sits at 45 cm. Rising from it is closer to rising from a dining chair than from the ground, which matters over a long evening and matters more for older guests. With 17 of the emerald version in stock, a row of four or five along a pool is a real option rather than a rendering.
Elba: The One That Moves
Elba is the lightest and lowest here: an aluminium frame, 189 cm long, with the seat at 29 cm. That combination is built around a habit rather than a room. Shade travels across a courtyard through the afternoon, and this is the lounger that travels with it, then stacks away when the season closes.
It also asks for something in return. At 29 cm the seat is low, so rising from it takes more effort than it does from Taormina, and the frame carries none of the weave or the loose upholstery that give the other two their presence. For a roof terrace, a rental property, or a garden where furniture is rearranged constantly, that trade reads as sensible. For a terrace meant to hold one composed arrangement all season, it does not.
Tulum: Acacia on a Narrow Footprint
Tulum is the only wooden frame of the four. Solid acacia, treated with oil, paired with aluminium, rope braiding, and a white mattress. Left unoiled, acacia silvers over the seasons: a finish some clients want and others reoil twice a year to hold the original colour. Either way it behaves, which is the point of the material.
The proportions do something the others cannot. At 65 cm wide and 205 cm long, Tulum is narrow and long, so it runs along a wall, sits in a passage beside a pool, or fits on a balcony where a 78 cm frame would block the route past it. The backrest adjusts, and the seat sits at 36 cm.
See all four in the outdoor collection.
