Hi-tech designer kitchens, ahead of game
Furniture Technologies
Maximum customisation, elegance and practicality are the key ingredients to Arclinea's success. Pioneering projects are drawn up at the Caldogno plant that involve an innovative combination of materials, colours and shapes. Attention to design and the need to perfectly frame even the profiles shaped in natural wood led this company to SCM, when it opted for a "stefani one" for Shape machinings and the "easy cart" for maximum control of the glue tanks.
Elegance and attention to design can be priceless ingredients in a modern kitchen, but not the only ones. In order to achieve a winning combination, each detail - furniture, material and appliances - needs to be carefully selected to make the environment as comfortable and practical as possible. This is where Arclinea kitchens stands out from the crowd: its ability to tastefully combine appearance and practicality and create areas that can be lived in tout court and not just spaces for cooking. Advanced technologies, high performing materials, soft, innovative lines and geometries lie at the root of a precise and exclusive kitchen concept and detailed design work that is further enhanced by collaboration with prominent designers.
PIONEERS FOR OVER SIXTY YEARS
The Arclinea philosophy has been handed down since 1958, when the company, founded in Caldogno (VI), released "Thea", its first kitchen that was modular and produced entirely in natural wood. The origins behind this choice of material, however, are much older, and take us back to 1925 when the business in Vicenza was established as a woodworking workshop by Silvio Fortuna. Initially, the business expanded under the family name and specialised in windows and doors and custom-designed furniture. It was in the 1950s that production headed in a different direction and the company dedicated itself entirely to kitchens, favouring the lightness and warmth of natural wood over metal, which was more popular at that time. It was at that time that Silvio handed over the reins to the second generation, his children Angelo, Lena and Almerino who worked alongside him helping with planning and design.
The next change came about in 1963 with "Claudia" the first Arclinea kitchen with built-in appliances, and the very first Made in Italy one on the market. Over the next few decades, the success story of this company from Vicenza continued, marked by numerous other innovative projects and a step away from its workshop dimensions. Here are just a few examples of what was produced under the Arclinea brand - the first kitchen in solid Italian walnut (1966), the one in modern coloured laminate (1968), the modular one with handle-free doors (1970) and even a "space saving" version designed specifically for small spaces (1972).
Over the decades, the designers broke with tradition using completely new material and chromatic combinations, but always ensuring the wood was shown off at its best, and they adapted shapes, material and sizes to the needs of the market. Sometimes, they were even ahead of the game, as in the case of the kitchen with no walls, connected to the rest of the house, or the professional one designed to offer a top-quality, "award-winning" chef's performance in the home.
A CONTINUALLY EVOLVING PATH
Arclinea moved to a new and larger plant in 1980 and started collaborating with the designer Antonio Citterio who gradually became its leading designer. This continuous attention to design contributed to expanding the market with the first projects in Europe and across the Atlantic, as was the case of the kitchen produced in 2007, in Washington, at the residence of the Italian Ambassador to the USA. Other significant and more recent milestones include the establishment of the Arclinea Design Cooking School, an international network of cooking schools, all carrying the Arclinea name, and the new Show Room & Training Center at the production site.
Since 2018, the company, led by Gianni Fortuna, has been part of Design Holding, the largest, top-of-the-range design group in Europe. 75% of production goes abroad, especially to the Netherlands where Arclinea is the most popular brand of kitchens, the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand, Hong Kong and Cyprus. With 140 employees, Arclinea has managed to double its turnover in the last four years to reach 30 million Euro in 2020. Investments also show considerable figures, with 4 million Euro spent in the four-year period between 2017-2021 to renovate the machinery, plants and 4.0 optical software.
Investments aim to achieve better production autonomy, as everything is manufactured internally, greater flexibility and efficiency, a wider product range, faster delivery times and improved quality in the machinings and end product.
"One of our key features is giving clients the opportunity to customise as much as possible" points out Gianni Fortuna, CEO, explaining that Arclinea kitchens are aimed at a high-end market and a client who greatly appreciates quality.
TOP QUALITY DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY
The search for increasingly higher standards in quality and personalisation led the company to seek out SCM. A collaboration that, as Diego Tonon, Operations Manager explains, "stems from a desire to combine Arclinea's design with SCM's high technology to fly the Made in Italy flag around the world".
The partnership was sealed with the purchase of a "stefani one", SCM's high-end, single-sided edgebander designed for big industries and exceptionally intense use. A solution that is particularly suited to complete and custom-designed processes and, as with this case, for edgebanding of softforming components, with the production of J-Shape profiles, guaranteeing state-of-the-art finishings.
"Thanks to this technology - continues Tonon - we manage to internally produce all the parts in wood, without ever having to make use of external suppliers, and machine all the shaped profiles to perfection. All this can be achieved thanks to a technological, expert and reliable partner like SCM and a solution that allows us to achieve high performance in edgebanding not just with laminated and veneered materials, that are easier to handle, but also with more complex operations on solid wood, solving the numerous critical aspects that this machining involves".
In order to offer a highly customised product, Arclinea needs to use various glues, of different types and colour, as well as handle more profiles. This is how the need for a device that favours fast glue changes on a par with the profile, came about. The decision was, therefore, taken to combine one of SCM's latest edgebanding products, the new "easy cart" with the "stefani one". It offers simple, automatic, long-lasting handling of the Polyurethane glue inside the glue tanks, as well as ensuring that all the scheduled control operations for cleaning, maintenance and pre-heating for each individual tank are done safely and as best as possible.
Arclinea (Design Holding) – Italy
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