Everyone’s familiar with the frustrating experience of lying prone on a cushy sofa of a Sunday afternoon, only to desire a favorite tome, or magazine, or remote control—as the case may be—and finding it the seemingly insurmountable distance of across the living room floor. Flexform’s Oltre, a modular sofa/bookcase and sofa/lounge bed resolves this dilemma put putting reading material within a sleepy arm’s reach. Don’t care to rise from your half slumber yet much in need of a literary fix? Simply reach around sofa’s end to Oltre’s armrest/bookcase and probe for the spine of your favorite Kafka, Beckett, Proust, et. al…

Oltre sofa. Designed by Flexform.

Like philosophical compatriots Day and Night and You and Me (a pair of multi-use bedroom systems that challenge the prevailing genres), Oltre uses space intelligently while promoting a sensible union between shelves and furnishing. The basic bones of Oltre are a metal frame covered in polyurethane foam and protective fabric upholstery. Optional bookshelf/armrests are made of MDF in smooth matte. And color choices for both sofa and shelves include white, cream, black, khaki, green, and grey, with the tempting option of leather covers in white, medium brown, dark or grained dark brown “testa di moro,” and the always intriguing “black russian red.”

Italian manufacturer Flexform boasts roots back to the early 70s, “an age when the extraordinarily innovative cultural era of Italian Design was dawning.” As such, the company counts international greats and local luminaries Antonio Citterio, Joe Colombo, and Sergio Asti among its ranks—a portfolio of talent whose ingenuity led to “a range of large sofas—warm islands of comfort consisting of variously sized modular elements that radically changed the concept of socializing and inhabiting space.” It’s certainly no stretch to say that the smart and savvy Oltre continues this fine tradition of innovation.