Workspace Design Show London 2026: EXPORMIM Brings Mediterranean Craft to Workspaces

For over six decades, EXPORMIM has mastered the language of rattan. What began in 1960 as a family workshop in Valencia has evolved into a studio where traditional basketry techniques meet contemporary design intelligence. Its artisans—many with a lifetime of experience bending, steaming, and weaving natural fibres—collaborate with international designers to translate Mediterranean sensibility into furniture for modern workspaces.

This heritage is not treated as nostalgia. It is the foundation for furniture that combines natural fibres, aluminium, glass, and textiles with advanced manufacturing and contemporary design. The result is precise, architectural, and tactile—pieces that bring warmth, material integrity, and sculptural presence to contract interiors worldwide.

EXPORMIM’s latest collections on display at the Workspace Design Show in London reflect the move towards softer, more human-centred offices. Textured glass filters light, aluminium curves replace rigid edges, and surfaces invite touch. The soft contract emerges as a new standard, where organic texture, Mediterranean light, and thoughtful proportions transform professional spaces into environments designed for pause, comfort, and connection.

LEKU Tables by Javier Pastor

A meditation on presence and absence inspired by Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida. The LEKU dining tables—oval and round—feature cast glass tops with ovoid silhouettes resting on robust FSC-certified sapeli legs. The textured glass captures and reflects its surroundings, inviting the landscape into dialogue. Each leg stands as a sculptural volume against the transparency above: void and mass, light and shadow, texture and smoothness in conversation. These are tables built for gathering, for the small rituals that bind teams together.

The coffee tables distil this architectural language into a more intimate scale. Aluminium sheet structures rise like roots from earth, their forms echoing Chillida’s steel explorations. The cast glass tops catch light and return it softly.

Here, art, architecture, craft, and design converge without hierarchy. The result: furniture that offers a pause in frenetic environments, that creates pockets of serenity where reflection becomes possible.

OBI Dining Armchairs by Ludovica+Roberto Palomba

A seating family that grows with two new dining armchairs. The OBI collection takes its name and spirit from the obi, the belt of the traditional Japanese kimono. High-resistance aluminium profiles form the structure; the backrest recalls the wrapped band that defines this outdoor range. One armchair stands on four slender, slightly tapered legs; the other features skid-base supports for enhanced stability.

The existing OBI family—lounge chairs, two-seaters, XL sofas, and modular elements—now features a premium textured band, wider than the original, hand-stitched with precision. The effect amplifies the collection’s quiet Japanese elegance.

With 100% recyclable aluminium injection moulding and profile extrusion, OBI delivers high-specification outdoor performance without sacrificing the comfort and refinement expected indoors. It embodies the soft contract ethos: furniture that refuses to compromise between durability and humanity.

MERIDIES Lounge Collection by Roberto Lazzeroni

With MERIDIES, designed by Roberto Lazzeroni, EXPORMIM explores the workplace as a place of retreat as much as interaction. Named after the Latin word for a shaded resting place, the collection translates this idea into modular seating suited to lounges, breakout areas, and hospitality-inspired office settings.

Crafted in FSC®-certified sapeli wood and guided by the structural language of rattan, its sofas and modules feature enveloping forms with semi-circular backrests and generous cushions. These curved silhouettes create a sense of shelter within open interiors, supporting moments of focus, conversation, or pause.

Aluminium armchair versions extend the collection’s visual lightness while offering enhanced durability for high-use environments, reinforcing the continuity between indoor and outdoor workspace.

LOOP and LAPALA Chairs: Enduring Craft for Everyday Workspaces

The LOOP chair, designed by Norm Architects, reflects a search for essential form. Made from natural rattan, its compact proportions, curved backrest, and restrained use of material result in a chair that is both lightweight and resilient. Its familiar silhouette, reminiscent of classic café seating, makes it a natural fit for workplace cafés, meeting rooms, and multipurpose areas where flexibility and comfort are required.

Alongside it, the indoor version of the LAPALA chair, by Lievore Altherr Molina, reinforces EXPORMIM’s artisan heritage. Hand-woven in rattan through a process that requires hours of manual skill, Lapala combines refined ergonomics with a quiet material presence. Its balanced proportions and tactile warmth make it particularly suited to meeting spaces, executive offices, and quiet zones, where craftsmanship contributes to a more considered working environment.

EXPORMIM presents a clear proposition: craftsmanship is not the opposite of innovation. It is its starting point. Their furniture introduces warmth without sacrificing performance or technical rigour. Heritage and modernity need not compete. Here, they collaborate.

For designers shaping the next generation of workplaces, their collection offers something essential: material honesty, sculptural intelligence, and a human scale that makes people feel at ease.

Stand Location: Business Design Centre | A34