Ripple Effect: The development of Tom Dixon’s Groove outdoor collection

Zooming in from a wintery England, Tom Dixon fills the computer screen with his trademark effortless cool. It’s 9am London-time and we’ve come together to talk about the launch of his new Groove outdoor furniture collection in Australia.

The timing for launch is spot on as we settled into the high summer, and Tom has specially teamed up with Living Edge to bring this new range to the world – Australia first.

Groove by name and by nature, the collection comes with what Dixon describes as “a recognisable attitude”. It has also been a decade in the making with Dixon cutting his teeth – so to speak – on early outdoor furniture projects with the likes of Trumpf at MOST (Italy’s largest museum of science and technology), and aluminium producer, HYDRO. To name just two.

While his earlier projects didn’t quite perfect that “Venn diagram” middle ground of price, comfort and aesthetics, Dixon took all his accumulated learnings – especially in high performance materials and advanced production techniques – to develop this sleek, all-aluminium range.

Dixon is clearly satisfied with the outcome of Groove, for its considerable comfort and competitive price-point. But he does qualify this with: “It takes a long time to look this effortless.”

Through his collaboration with HYDRO, Dixon became obsessed with superforming aluminium, a high-tech process which blow-moulds and then vacuum-forms aluminium into complex curves. This tipped off further investigations into corrugated aesthetics, reminding Dixon of his parents’ old Citroën 2CV with its corrugated bonnet: the perfect blend of structural innovation with a distinct aesthetic outcome. Groove, with its soft, tubular curves, is the literal ripple effect.

“I’ve never really been a decorative designer,” says Dixon of his work. “Although our pieces are decorative, it’s not applied decoration.” Rather, he’s interested in the natural patterns that emerge from the engineering of structure.

The range’s distinctive linear aesthetic is in fact a result of Dixon looking to blend the rigidised sheets of corrugated aluminium with the leg structure in a manner that appears seamless. In the case of the chair, Dixon looked to soften it up, rounding it out for visual appeal and comfort.

It’s been tipped as ‘a bit’ Art Deco, and the reference does fit. But there’s also something very chameleon-like in Groove’s appeal. Dixon thinks the range hints at Postmodernism and could just as easily fit into the 1980s as it might the 1920s or 30s; it ticks the box of universal appeal, and transcends the pigeonholes of trend or typology.

With its high-gloss finish (chosen partly because this highlights all those perfectly-fit curves, but also simply because it’s not matte), and two shades of Moss and Putty, you can already see the pieces – obround table, armchairs, stackable chairs and stools – settling into almost any environment, home, hospitality and common spaces both indoors and out.

Beyond furniture, Dixon is also quite passionate about the future of mobility in lighting. In Groove this innate flexibility is already apparent. And not one to rest on an idea, Dixon has already begun to transition his indoor lighting collections into outdoor lighting. Starting with his most recognisable luminaire, Melt.

“What interests me [about] lighting is the endless possibilities [available], rotating around this kind-of evolution from electrical to electronic… there’s so many possibilities driven by this complete change in how lamps are engineered,” he says. “And I think portability is really interesting, specifically in lighting where, for so long, we’ve been tethered to the wall or the ceiling, and forced to have fixed positions for lighting.”

Now re-engineered as a fully portable outdoor lighting solution, you can stand (tripod base) or hang (leather strap) your beloved Melt Outdoor just about anywhere. An embellishment to your outdoor realm, and a little bit of Tom Dixon, out in the wild.

Groove Outdoor Collection

Living Edge