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The laptop, the lamp and the phone all need power, and on Nami the answer is cut into the leather itself: lift a hinged cable hatch and a power socket appears beside USB ports, USB-C among them. Shut, the hatch sits within the top and the surface reads as leather again, nothing plugged in on show. On modern office tables in leather this is the detail that earns its keep every working day, more than any finish.
The hatch belongs to one gesture. Curved in a mould, a beech plywood panel forms top and flanks together and is then clad in leather, so the desk reaches the floor in a single sweep. Towards the visitor, Canaletto walnut fills the front, and the leather above splits exactly over the panel's divisions. Under rings stamped into the hide, a wireless charger takes care of the phone. At 171 × 80 cm the footprint suits a study at home as much as a compact executive cabin.
Design Lorenzo De Grandis, 2022; maker i4Mariani, Mariano Comense, a company at work since 1957. The range is brief: the desk, then a drawer on one side or both, its walnut front curving with the leather and its interior in ash stained graphite, deep enough for A4. La Mercanti maps every socket in the room with the client before deciding which way the desk should face.
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Four things. First, the number of drawers, one or two, and the flank for each. Then the leather collection, among Harmonie, Privilege and Vegetale, and the colour within it. The walnut and the graphite-stained ash interiors are standard, so the wood needs no choice. The size is fixed too, 171 × 80 × h 75 cm, which keeps the order short: the real decisions are about leather and layout.
The modesty panel, veneered in Canaletto walnut, closing the front between the two leather curves. It is the side a visitor in the cabin sees for the whole meeting, and it gives Nami its two-tone face: wood in the centre, leather on the flanks and over the top. The leather above divides exactly in line with the partitions of this panel, so the joins fall where the design intends.
The designer of Nami, drawn in 2022. His studio, De Grandis Studio, handled the art direction of the 2023 i4Mariani catalogue, and he created Abstract Leather, a collection of hand-made artworks in relief leather. That background shows in the desk: leather here is the material that defines the shape, from the working surface down to the floor.
The right-hand drawer has a compartment of 30 × 40 cm, made for A4 sheets and stationery. The drawer unit itself measures 42.5 × 67.5 cm and is 17 cm high, with a curved front in Canaletto walnut that follows the leather. For a director who still signs on paper, it keeps the day's files within arm's reach, right at the side of the chair.
Inside, i4Mariani uses ash stained graphite, both in the drawers and in the inner compartment of the desk. The walnut stays where it is seen, on the fronts and the modesty panel; the dark ash takes over where you work. White paper and coloured files stand out clearly against it, and the hidden parts keep one consistent tone.
A single size and one continuous curve make Nami simple to order and worth planning carefully. Five steps to place it well in a cabin or in a study at home.
Nami measures 171 × 80 cm and is 75 cm high, a single size in the i4Mariani range. Draw it to scale on the cabin layout with the chair behind and a visitor's chair in front, and check the walking space on both sides before anything else is fixed.
Top and sides are one leather-clad curve. The maker calls it a counterpoint to the rigid geometry of indoor spaces, so the desk reads best near straight lines: a bookshelf wall, a band of windows, a flat partition.
Drawers come singly or in a pair, one on each flank. With one, our advice is the side away from the door, so the flank that faces the room stays clean; with two, the desk is symmetrical and both flanks need space.
Each drawer unit is 42.5 × 67.5 cm and pulls out from the flank. Leave enough free floor beside the desk for it to open fully, especially in a cabin where a credenza or a wall stands close to the chair.
In i4Mariani's own photographs, Nami stands against a garden seen through tall glass, with daylight on leather and walnut. Where the layout allows, give the top side light: the contrast of leather against walnut is what makes the shape visible.
