To coincide with this year’s event, Roche Bobois has unveiled its new outdoor collection.
Designed for terraces, gardens and poolside settings, the new collection expresses the brand’s boldness, savoir-faire and commitment to comfort, through an elegant and contemporary vision of outdoor design.
There are two central pillars to the new collection:

Catalina is an elegant and aesthetically designed outdoor dining table featuring a ceramic top, coloured throughout with an enamel-like finish that captures and softens the reflectedlight. Made of ‘yachting’ steel, the table boasts a light and slender structure and legs that gently curve out towards the bottom.
Born in Chicago in 1969, Stephen Burks is the highly acclaimed US designer who has headed his eponymous award-winning interdisciplinary studio, Stephen Burks Man Made, for 20 years. Burks has become renowned for his singular approach to design, one that pivots on the intersection of craft, community and industry. Outside of his commercial work, Burks also acts as a product development consultant to a wide range of non-profit organisations – collaborating with artisans in over 20 different countries and on six continents across the globe.
Giving back to his industry, these consultations are intended to extend the craft traditions he cares so deeply about far into the future. His vision is a pluralistic one of a world of design inclusive of all cultural perspectives.

Burks’ work has been the subject of major exhibitions at institutions such as the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His designs were also presented at the 19th Architecture Biennale in Venice, as part of the 2025 US Pavilion.
Eleven years ago he also became the first African-American designer to win the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Award and he’s also the only industrial designer to be awarded the Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Along with his partner Malika Leiper, Burks received the accolade of the 2026 Wallpaper* Design Award for Best Helping Hands, honouring their collaborative and inclusive
approach to design.
“With its soft curves and oversized frames, Catalina offers a new level of sensuous comfort to the Roche Bobois outdoor lifestyle,” says Burks. “As the first collaboration since our groundbreaking Traveler collection, Catalina was a joy to develop. Its strong yet timeless vision had unanimous appeal to the Roche Bobois design team.”

Designed by Phillippe Bouix, this outdoor solution comprises a modular sofa upholsted in Missoni fabrics specifically engineered for exterior use. With a seat made of bi-density XS/MS Dryfeel polyurethane foam and polyester fibre, the Formentera outdoor version also features mobile backrests with a handle, freely positionable on the sofa, made of bi-density XS/F Dryfeel polyurethane foam and polyester fibre. Its structure comprises solid okoumé and okoumé plywood, and suspension via its elastic straps. The short legs are made from regenerated polypropylene, in a black finish with an anti-slip system.
Top image: Formentera sofa, with Missoni fabric. Photo: Baptiste Le Quiniou.
For more information visit Roche Bobois
Related: Aesthetics and awareness – how Roche Bobois is furthering its Australian foothold
Designer Selects: Greg Natale shares his appreciation of Roche Bobois statement pieces and more
Bringing Australia’s architecture and design community into focus since 2009.