A suspended seat with a story carved into it
Designed by Matteo Modica for Sublimio, aprile pairs a petal-shaped seat with a four-point ceiling suspension. Its 60-piece edition connects Italian craftsmanship to a narrative that becomes part of each object.
Lifting your feet from the floor is a small change in how you occupy a room. It is also the experience at the centre of aprile, a suspended seat designed by Matteo Modica for his Rome-based studio, Sublimio. Inspired by a floating petal and memories of childhood, the project translates an idea of lightness into a shaped wooden seat supported by an elliptical steel ring. Its construction and identity were developed by the same studio, allowing the story behind the design to influence the way each piece is made, numbered and encountered.
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aprile by Matteo Modica – Highlights:
A personal project developed over a decade
Modica first conceived aprile during his university years, then developed it over more than a decade. Trained in industrial design, he founded Sublimio in 2009 and built a practice around branding and communication. The seat brings that background into contact with his original discipline.
The starting point was the lightheartedness associated with spring and childhood. The petal provides a formal reference for the seating element, while suspension gives the idea a physical expression: the sitter is held above the floor. Sublimio envisages the piece in homes, corporate headquarters and high-end hospitality settings.
For a studio used to defining how other businesses present themselves, aprile offered the opportunity to develop both the object and the language surrounding it. The resulting project extends from the seat and its fittings to a dedicated identity, written narrative and website.
Four suspension points define the movement
Despite its resemblance to a swing, Sublimio describes aprile as a floating seat. It is secured to the ceiling at four points rather than two, an arrangement that the studio says reduces its swinging radius. The intention is to retain the sensation of suspension within a more contained range of movement.
That distinction is central to the project. The association with a swing establishes a familiar, playful reference, while the suspension system adapts the experience to an interior setting. The feeling of lightness depends on a clearly defined supporting structure.
A handmade stainless-steel elliptical ring supports the seat, interlocking with it without screws at that connection. The custom hardware uses AISI 316 stainless steel. These details explain how the apparently delicate form is held together, making the junction between wood and metal as important as the silhouette.
One form expressed through two materials
The production process combines 3D technology with Italian artisanal techniques. According to Sublimio, the seating element is progressively carved from a single block, then sanded and polished by hand. The sequence moves from shaping the volume to refining the surface that the sitter touches.
Two versions give the form different material identities. aprile nuvola uses high-density wood with a matte white lacquer finish; aprile terra is carved from solid Canaletto walnut. The white version presents the petal as a continuous painted surface, while the walnut version makes the material itself a visible part of the design. Both use the same steel support. Keeping the underlying construction consistent allows the finish and material to change the character of the seat without altering the project’s central gesture.
An edition organised around the days of a month
The edition comprises 60 pieces: 30 in nuvola and 30 in terra, corresponding to the thirty days of April in each version. Owners select a day, which is engraved beneath the seat alongside the opening words of a chapter from an original story about childhood and discovery. Access to the remaining narrative is reserved for owners. The numbering therefore has a role beyond identifying a limited edition. It gives each piece a specific place within the story, while the engraving makes that connection part of the physical object.
The launch materials followed the same logic. Sixty postcards combined two cover variants with excerpts from the thirty chapters, each finished with a real flower. Guests could choose a card through its number, words or flower, repeating on a smaller scale the act of selecting a day.
This is where aprile’s product design and branding meet most clearly. The narrative informs decisions about the edition, the engraving and the way the piece is introduced. The seat remains the starting point: its suspended construction gives physical form to the experience that the rest of the project describes.
