What did you have in mind?
Trade terms for professionals and design studios
Colour on a metal chair usually arrives with a condition attached: order enough of them. Emeco drops it. The aluminium of 1 Inch can be powder coated in any colour of its in-house range with no minimum quantity, so one armchair in Coral Orange is as valid an order as a hall of chairs in Dark Grey. Six shades are on offer, White Grey, Sweater Brown, Light Blue, Green, Coral Orange and Dark Grey, beside black and the hand-brushed metal. Anyone selecting luxury designer chairs to a palette gets a frame that is a decision.
The coat goes wherever the metal goes. On 1 Inch All Aluminum it covers the whole piece; on the aluminium-frame 1 Inch, the structure beneath a seat of another material; on the tables, the base. A counter with stools in the office cafeteria can share one shade with the boardroom chairs. Jasper Morrison drew it; Emeco makes it in Hanover, Pennsylvania.
What sits on the frame sorts the family: recycled plastic in eight colours, plywood in ash or walnut, upholstery in recycled polyester, wool or leather. Beside these stand 1 Inch All Aluminum, metal throughout as chair, armchair and three stools, and 1 Inch Reclaimed, a stacking chair in one piece of recycled plastic, and the café and bar tables. La Mercanti shows the colour chips against your floor and wall finishes before the frame colour is fixed, because a powder coat is chosen in the light of the room.
Share the finishes you wish to evaluate
Yes, two. The café table stands 72 cm high and the bar table 109 cm. Both take the same tops: a circle or a square of 61, 76 or 91 cm, or a rectangle of 61 × 76 cm, in hand-brushed aluminium, in solid ash or walnut, or in Accoya wood where the table lives outside. The base is recycled aluminium, as on the chairs, and stands on levelling glides in black nylon. A dining hall and its coffee counter can be planned without leaving the collection.
They are the three words Emeco prints beside 1 Inch, with no gloss of its own. We read them against what the brochure states: for Age, a family built to last from recycled, reclaimed and sustainably sourced materials; for Weather, suitability for a wide variety of applications, inside and outside; for Trend, furniture meant to be strong and simple. Decide which of the three weighs most on your project and the version tends to follow.
Emeco's figure is 95% less energy when recycled aluminium is used in place of primary aluminium. All the aluminium the company works with is at least 80% recycled and fully recyclable, and its offcuts go back to local recyclers. A project that reports on the energy embodied in its materials gets two numbers it can quote with their source: the recycled share of the metal, and the energy spared by choosing it.
Emeco states that its products are certified Clean Air Gold or Clean Air Silver for VOC emissions under ANSI/BIFMA e3. For 1 Inch there is an Intertek Clean Air Gold certificate issued on 6 February 2026, which names the non-upholstered models. In a specification, cite the company statement for the range and the certificate for the non-upholstered chairs, so that every line points to the document that covers it.
Plywood. The seat and back of the chair and armchair, and the seat of each stool, are offered in ash or walnut plywood as one of three options on the aluminium frame. Solid ash and solid walnut appear elsewhere in the family, on the table tops. Both belong to interiors. Emeco describes its wood as locally and sustainably sourced and finished with low-VOC coatings, useful where a fit-out records the origin of its timber.
Emeco says precisely which members of the 1 Inch family are suitable for outdoor use. Five steps sort the seating and the tables into what can live on a terrace and what belongs under a roof.
1 Inch All Aluminum is suitable for outdoor use in both its finishes, hand brushed or powder coated. That covers the chair, the armchair and the three stools. Begin the terrace list here when the brief asks for metal alone, from the dining seats to the bar.
On the version with the aluminium structure, the seat and back in recycled polypropylene with wood fibre are approved for outdoors. Eight shades are offered. Choose this where the terrace should pick up a tone from the interior while the outline of the chair stays the same.
Emeco describes the one-piece Reclaimed chair as engineered for high-use environments, indoors and outdoors, and each of its nine shades is suitable outside. It stacks ten high, which helps on the days when the terrace has to be cleared quickly.
A table with aluminium base and aluminium top can stand inside or out. For a wooden surface in the open Emeco offers Accoya, and notes that like any natural wood it turns grey outdoors. Decide whether that silvering is wanted before choosing between the two.
Plywood seats, upholstered seats and table tops in solid ash or walnut are the interior members of the family. Keep them for the dining room behind the glass, and let the same silhouette continue outside in metal or in recycled plastic.
