La Biota (Michele Sottocasa)

La Biota is the Italian pipe workshop Michele Sottocasa runs alone in Turin. Sottocasa (b. 1983) is said to have moved into pipe making in 2013. The pieces the workshop turns out are shaped by hand, and most are finished with a horn band or ferrule on the shank.

From Graphic Design to the Pipe Bench

Sottocasa arrived at the bench by a roundabout path. He trained in photography and graphic design, and worked for years as a graphic designer and art director. His acquaintance with pipes reaches back much further, to his grandfather, who smoked a pipe. Once he himself took up pipe smoking, he made his first attempts on pieces for his own use; he only began making for others once he felt he had reached a standard that met his own criteria. He is recorded as a member of Accademia della Pipa, which brings together Italy's pipe makers.