Soft Stone began with a paradox: what would it feel like to rest on something with the presence and permanence of carved stone, but with the give and comfort of a generously-sized sofa? This question guided five years of development between Gabriel Tan and ClassiCon.

The idea took shape in Porto in 2020, during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. While taking walks at Parque da Cidade, Gabriel observed how naturally people gathered and lingered on the park's large stone terraces, and he began to wonder what it would mean to design that feeling into upholstered seating. Running alongside this was a longstanding fascination with Isamu Noguchi's stone sculptures and the way they achieve an impression of softness through mass and rounding. Gabriel sought to invert that logic: to give something inherently soft the visual weight and gravitas of carved stone. He looked to the interlocking joints of stonemasons and sculptors, and found in their asymmetric logic a system he could translate into a modular furniture language.

The result is eleven distinct modules that interlock with the flowing, non-repetitive rhythm of stonework: sculptural and asymmetrical from every angle, and simultaneously blocky and organic. Beneath the form, the construction is equally considered, with a layered upholstery system that moves from firmer foam at the front edge through memory foam and a quilted down-and-fibre mat; calibrated for both ease of movement and the characteristic feeling of slowly settling in. Four fabric ranges for the removable covers: Tinto, Pamir RE, Chenille Andro Plus, and Antoni were selected with Zimmer + Rohde to complement the sofa's cubic geometry.

Materials: Internal plywood frame with classic Nosag springs, layered foam of varying densities, quilted mat of certified down and fine hollow profile fibres, and Zimmer + Rohde textiles