inside scandinavian design · and peter hiort-lorenzen was clear: make a metal pipe chair with a...
TRANSCRIPT
Inside Scandinavian DesignAn exhibition about the work and values in the Scandinavian furniture industry.
co-operation between:
TMF, The Swedish Federation of Wood and Furniture IndustryStockholm Furniture Fair & Light Fair
Designed and curated by FÄRG & BLANCHE
INTRO
On the commission of Stockholm Furniture Fair and TMF. Färg & Blanche have created an exhibition focusing on Scandinavian design and the work and values behind it.
What does it mean to work in the furniture industry in Scandinavia today?To design, develop and produce a piece of furniture? What role does innovation, craftsmanship and the often close proximity to local production play? And how is the landscape of production changing, with the ever-increasing emphasis on environmental issues? Inside Scandinavian Design is an exhibition highlighting the work behind Scandinavian furniture production. It follows products from concept to implementation, covering the impressive process of designing, developing and producing furniture, as well as the challenges of creating something long lasting on the market.
Through a number of hand-picked pieces of furniture the story of contemporary Scandinavian design and furniture production is taking centre stage. All the exhibits have their own stories to tell; about the people and processes behind them, the places where they were made, and the philosophy and working methods of the companies that produced them, from crafting by hand to robotized production lines.
Inside Scandinavian Design invites visitors to step beyond the mere aesthetics and provides a more in-depth understanding of the values behind Scandinavian furniture production.
Text by: HANNA NOVA BEATRICE
INSTALLATION
The wooden pavilion housing the exhibitions gives the visitor a sense of stepping inside a large piece of furniture.
”We wanted to make a spectacular structure surrounding the exhibition and embracing the viewer, at the same time as the ongoings of the fair outside is clearly visible,” Fredrik Färg and Emma Marga Blanche explains.
The shape of the structure is inspired by traditional upholstered furniture with capiton patterns, created when you pull in the textile with a button. It is made of 160 wooden bends of moulded birch veneer which has been processed in a numerical controlled cuter for a perfect fit. The wooden bends is then assembled with 114 key parts that connect all bends together. The key parts are upholstered by hand, created in the Färg & Blanche studio and crafted into unique leather squares. All the wood work are were made by the subcontractor Bendinggroup, which also produced The chairs Campus, Palma and Dent on show in the exhibition.
”In a way the structure is a tribute to the Scandinavian furniture industry, using pressed birch but in our own way.”
The exhibition showcase ten pieces of furniture, chosen not so much for their aestetic but more for the ideas and values behind them, how they were produced and developed, and the stories that comes with that. In this way a a handmade chair by a master craftsman sits next to a chair made in a robotized production line. The stories are told via vivid examples, sketches and prototypes, as well as videos and text by Hanna Nova Beatrice.
On the small stage at the back of the exhibition there will be a new guest invited each day to describe what Scansinavian design is to them and pick two piece of furniture to illustrate this. The approached persons that answered the questions is: Li Edelkoort, Jamie Hayon, Industrial Facility, MJÖLK from Toronto and Ilse Crawford.
Welcome inside!
What makes a product iconic? How does a chair become a bestseller? And how does the success of a product influence the image of a company, both at home and abroad?
The Campus chair became a financial marvel for Swedish company Lammhults. It was the early 1990s, Swedish design was garnering attention worldwide, and Lammhults felt it was time to increase exports. The brief to Danish designers Johannes Foersom and Peter Hiort-Lorenzen was clear: make a metal pipe chair with a range of possible uses that would sell in large numbers in a lot of countries.
Campus made its entrance and the results exceeded all expectations. A simple-looking chair with a strong, unique character, beautiful alone or in a group, with serene details that were a testament to its designers, and technically advanced but hidden back attachments on a wave-formed back that is comfortable despite its undulating movement.
“To do a Campus“ became an oft-used expression within every ambitious design company. Lammhults quickly went from an exotic upstart to an important international player – but it was the Campus chair that was in the spotlight. In many markets, the chair made such an impression that the Campus brand was far better known than Lammhults itself. Since its launch 23 years ago, 1.5 million have been sold.
“To do a Campus“
Product: CampusCompany: LammhultsDesigners: Johannes Foersom and Peter Hiort-LorenzenLaunched: 1992
“To do a Campus“
But what was it that made Campus‘s style such a success story? According to Lammhults it was about launching the right product at the right time and focusing on the long-term partnership. Since its inception in 1965, the company has stood by this motto, so much so that it has become one of its greatest competitive strengths. Lammhults let its products and partnerships mature slowly, investing great resources in development and production tools. And it has been tenacious in terms of financial return. As CEO Lars Bulow says: „You need patience to wait out a sales success.“
Since Campus launched in 1992, the furniture industry has become more volatile, with shorter lead times, faster decisions, and more comprehensive outsourcing to low-cost countries. „The understanding and appreciation of long-lasting quality is starting to be lost by architects, buyers and end users,“ says Bulow. “At the moment, short-term economics are running the show. The furniture business has become entertainment, and the media reinforces this by showing individual objects instead of focusing on use or the development process.“ But there are great examples of good collaborations between people and companies thinking long-term, he says. “We just need to be better at highlighting them.“
Slim and stylish, with a clear reference to fine tailoring, Emma was launched at the Stockholm Furniture & Light fair 2013 and landed directly in the spotlight. The brief to designers Färg&Blanche – to update the classic Emma armchair from 1840 – not only produced an elegant, tactile piece of furniture, but also a completely new manufacturing technique combining industrial production with craftsmanship.
“We call it extreme sewing,” say designers Emma Marga Blanche and Fredrik Färg. They showed Gärsnäs CEO Dag Klockby a number of models and he fell immediately for a version in which the needlework was going through to the armchair’s back piece. Together with veteran 20-year Gärsnäs product developer Lars-Gunnar Larsson they experimented with different production methods. The goal was to get rid of upholstered furniture’s hardwood structure, create a textile back instead, and sew through it. Many tests and prototypes were required to find the right composition and most effective production method. One of the last pieces of the puzzle was the order in which to sew the chair, since the whole back section was to be sewed at once. Emma’s production includes both industrial work and craftsmanship. The subcontractor EKE-Möbler, based about an hour from the Gärsnäs factory, employs 15 people but only CEO Peter Erlandsson can sew the chair alone – otherwise it requires two people per chair. It‘s a method of production completely dependent on the skill of the human hand.
”Industrial production with craftsmanship”
Product: EmmaCompany: GärsnäsDesigners: Färg & BlancheLaunched: 2013
”Industrial production with craftsmanship”
In line with orders increasing – not least from the USA where Google, Microsoft and Facebook are all making inquiries – more upholsterers must be trained, as Erlandsson can currently make just three armchairs a day.
Most Gärsnäs production takes place in Sweden, and almost all wood-work is done in the main factory. If the company needs to utilise a subcontractor, it‘s quality that dictates – the subcontractors for curved wood, for example, are in Denmark. They have built up a network through the years, with Gärsnäs as a central point. “Previously, we did almost everything at our own factory, but nowadays we need to outsource some parts since we work with so many specific technologies,” says Klockby. “It becomes difficult to have everything under the same roof.“
The interest in the Emma chair has been huge. “It‘s innovative and new, and at the same time people have a memory of its ancestor,“ Klockby says. The year after the launch, the family grew with sister chair Emily, and this year a footstool will be launched. “One can end up producing a lot of follow-ups, if you choose to expand a furniture range – as a producer you need to make sure you‘re not watering the core idea down. There has to be a justification, and in this case I think there is,“ says Klockby. “A good piece of furniture can last over 20 years. If it becomes a classic, it can last even longer and have an eternal quality. My intuition tells me that the Emma armchair will end up somewhere like that.”
“Dent will be a sales success of the future, it‘s a milestone in shell-chair history and will never be a has-been – we just know this,“ says Blå Station founder and design manager Johan Lindau.
The Dent chair by designers o4i was launched at the Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair 2013; traditionally compression-moulded and veneered but with a three-dimensional seat, the chair appears reminiscent of a crumpled piece of paper carefully unfolded.
The biggest challenge in Dent‘s development was making a threedimensional form from a traditional veneer. It‘s a problem designers and producers have struggled with for a long time. It was previously possible to stretch the material somewhat, and a 3D veneer was developed – but it was a processed veneer, expensive and resource-intensive. o4i’s Henrik Kjellberg and Jon Lindström contacted Blå Station when they realised they’d cracked the code, and the challenge became to convince the industry that the impossible was now possible. The designers and subcontractors Bendinggroup together created eight test tools consisting of bent and twisted sheets; few thought it would work but Blå Station refused to give up.
To approximate the cost of developing a stool like Dent is difficult, particularly when it comes to the patience needed to go against the flow when you believe in an idea.
It‘s hard to measure the time invested by the designers while finalising their design, or by Blå Station and Bendinggroup with repeated testing, failing and retesting. The only tangible cost is that of the tools, which cost about 200,000 kronor (€21,000), ultimately a small amount if the approach works. “The tool is the difference between theory and practice – without it, your theory can‘t be proved right,” says Lindau.
“Not just a wrinkled chair“
Product: DentCompany: Blå StationDesigners: O4iLaunched: 2013
“Not just a wrinkled chair“
To develop a chair like Dent, its vital to be close to industry. “We have a healthy production landscape in Sweden; the designer you collaborate with is very much involved throughout the whole process, from the initial idea to the presentation at the fair, and the know-how of the factory is close by,“ says Lindau.
Blå Station continues to invest in innovation, and they have the patience to tell the sto-ries behind their furniture. If the public understands why a product looks the way it does or why it was made, “then a wrinkled chair ceases to be just a wrinkled chair,” says Lindau. “Product information needs to be sexier and the level of knowledge needs to be higher. Dent is not just a chair, it opens up new possibilities for a traditional material.”
How can a company focusing on handmade craft production compete in a marketfocused on outsourcing and cutting prices?
Almost 50 years since it was founded by master craftsman Kari Virtanen, Nikari still operates in much the same way: from its studio workshop in Fiskars, a small village west of Helsinki, seven cabinet makers create high-quality handcrafted furniture using certified timbers. A determination to concentrate on timber has gained Nikari great knowledge about Finnish wood and surface-treatment materials like oils, waxes and soaps, and since a change of ownership in 2010 there has been a renewed focus on export – Nikari today has representatives in 20 countries – and developing the existing product line.
One such attempt was the 12 Designs for Nature project celebrating the Helsinki World Design Capital in 2012. Nikari invited 12 designers – such as Harri Koskinen, Martí Guixé and Nao Tamura – to collaborate with its cabinet makers and launch a new product every month. For the simple and elegant December chair, Nikari craftsmen collaborated with designers Jasper Morrison and Wataru Kumano. The original idea was to make a flat-pack chair that could be easily assembled by the end user – but it proved too difficult to store the various parts made of a living material such as wood without distortion taking place due to temperature changes.
The chair may look simple, but it required very precise woodwork, in particular to the back leg joint.
“Handcrafted and long-lasting”
Product: XL December Company: NikariDesigners: Jasper Morrison and Wataru KumanoLaunched: 2012/2014
“Handcrafted and long-lasting”
Once it’s assembled and surface-treated with an oil mixture featuring a hint of white pigment to keep the ash light in colour, the 100 percent linen canvas upholstery is added, cut and sewn by a local Fiskars leather master situated just 200m from Nikari’s workshop. The upholstery alternative for 2014’s bigger XL December chair is natural leather from Tärnsjö in Sweden. All in all, it takes 6-8 weeks to produce a series.
Nikari employs a total of seven cabinet makers and, in order to pass on know-how and skills, uses an apprentice system. The cabinet makers work in close collaboration with local wood suppliers and often participate in the selection of timber from nearby forests, which is then sawn, dried and stored under their supervision. Some basic component work is outsourced to trusted Finnish subcontractors but the final product is manufactured at Nikari’s workshop. ”Naturally, we think all the time about optimal manufacturing solutions, but the CNC machine is not always the most rational choice for our products,” says Nikari CEO Johanna Vuorio. “We like to concentrate on quality, handcraft and design – it motivates us.”
With a growing interest in craft and sustainability, Nikari is gathering attention outside Scandinavia, collaborating with international magazines such as Monocle and licensing production to Japan. ”We feel there is always a need for good furniture,” says Vuorio. “We don’t see a need to compete on pricing. Our customers know that the most economical option in the long term is to buy quality.”
Since Kinnarps was established in 1942, it has grown from a small Swedish carpentry shop to a major international player, with 500 showrooms across Europe and 2500 employees. In the late 1950s the company changed focus to making office furniture for a wider audience and the key to its success has been a focus on large-scale modern industry, which makes it financially viable to produce in Sweden.
Today Kinnarps has some of the most modern and effective factories in Europe. ”We have a production facility area of 100,000m²,” says COO Anders Andersson. ”We introduced unmanned robots and trucks early on to be more efficient and to eliminate monotonous tasks but, truth be told, the robots are usually the favourite attraction and topic of discussion at our factory visits.”
The company is a pioneer of local production. The largest factory is located in Kinnarp in Västergötland, but work also takes place in Skillingaryd, Jönköping, Vinslöv and Tranås. In the development phase of every new piece of furniture, like the Libra sofa bench, the environmental aspects are taken into account and include every step up to the delivery to the end buyer. The Libra’s open design and its shape, the wave – inspired by the zodiac sign depicted by balanced scales – makes it possible for users to sit in two directions, encouraging conversation and spontaneous meetings. Kinnarps launched the multi-fabric Libra, a collaboration with Swedish design group Snowroom, in 2014.
”Bringing Swedish production to the future”
Product: LibraCompany: KinnarpsDesigners: SnowroomLaunched: 2014
”Bringing Swedish production to the future”
Recent environmental improvements at Kinnarps include reducing furniture packaging, and using recyclable felt blankets and corrugated cardboard instead of disposable material; reducing solvent emissions; and tackling the handling of combustible waste from production facilities. The aim is for raw materials, components and chemical agents to have the lowest possible impact. Kinnarps has its own transport system and plans production according to how and when products will be delivered. Everything is accounted for, down to the smallest detail.
At Kinnarps, it’s a given that sustainability and unique solutions will affect work in the future. In recent years, the company has seen a change in customer preferences – people don’t want the same furniture as everyone else, but require unique solutions, to choose colours and designs for the workplace. The company has invested SEK 60m in its primary Kinnarp factory, with a new production line that will focus entirely on producing individual items. This means every single product goes along the chain as a unique product, with no adjustment on the production line. “We‘re convinced that we need to take a long-term approach to stay at the forefront of our industry and drive sustainability issues in the right direction,” says Kinnarps marketing and communications director Paulina Lundström. “It‘s easy to think too narrowly, resolving the immediate issues, instead of devising the best possible solution that is sustainable over time.“
”The best innovations and developments are the ones which are invisible, as if they have always been,” says Khodi Feiz, designer of the Palma chair for Offecct.
Feiz’s first encounter with CEO Kurt Tingdal and design manager Anders Englund was early in 2000, when he exhibited in Milan. Offecct was a company that stood out, not only for its ambition to push innovations and product development to create new and long-lasting products, often with the environment in mind, but also for its collaborations with international designers, something that was uncommon in Sweden at the time.
Palma was launched in 2008 after two years in development. Its form, the shape of a cupped hand, is captured in the seat, backrest and armrests as a single graceful movement, an informal easy chair for meetings. With a moulded birch veneer frame and seamless upholstery, its design is extremely elegant, but the true innovation is in the shell. At the same time as the shell is cupped, it offers back support with its double-sided curve, and is the first shell of its kind where an insert in the moulding has provided this function. Using new methods and finding new ways prolongs the process but also pushes production forward.
Considering the environmental impact of production and pushing development have always been integral parts of Offecct’s process. The company has five product developers working full-time in Tibro, a small town in Västra Götaland County with a long tradition of furniture production. ”A product developer has to make the impossible possible,” says Englund.
”Everything is possible”
Product: PalmaProducer: OffecctDesigner: Khodi FeizLaunched: 2008
”Everything is possible”
“There’s a quote by Henry Ford, the founder of Ford, which very much describes what product development is about: ”If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Offecct always produces as local as possible, but sometimes must look further away if the right know-how is missing in the country. ”Fortunately, this has only happened a few times. We truly believe in local production in Sweden in the future,” says Englund. ”Sweden has many advantages when dealing with materials and processes, but we also have to be aware that many larger companies have become a little too comfortable and therefore not eager enough to try new things – it’s Sweden’s biggest downfall.”
The collaboration between Offecct and Khodi Feiz is some 15 years old and has resulted in a slow and steady line of new products.”I believe in long-term relationships where designer and producer can grow to know each other and build on a mutual goal and a high level of expertise,” Feiz explains. “This is how quality products with strong meaning and longevity can be developed. At the end it pays off threefold.”
”We make furniture for people – the customer can decide for themselves if the chair ends up in a home or an office,” says Swedese managing director Peter Jiseborn.
Monica Förster’s at first simple-looking Breeze table is a typical Swedese product – cool, formal but with an irregularity – a wave – that makes it immediately memorable. ”It’s a detail completely devoid of function, but it adds magic,” says Jiseborn. “And if you know laminating technology, you know that it’s impossible to bend a detail into a table without the rest being affected.” Thus the wave is manufactured separately, then embossed into an existing table surface that is either copper or lacquered in white or black. The table harks back to the company’s founding idea; to create advanced, expressive furniture that is uncopyable.
The company’s head office and largest factory – which focuses on laminating and forming wood, and manufactures the Lamino chair and Staffan Holm’s Spin stool – are situated in Vaggeryd. Together with another factory in Äng, Swedese employs around 100 people in Sweden, and Jiseborn’s team of five product developers work closely with the predominantly Swedish designers. All the company’s products are Swedish-made, and certain products utilise local subcontractors, such as the Libri shelf, which is manufactured 10km from Vaggeryd and arrives lacquered in parts at Swedese for quality control and assembly.
”A detail that makes a difference”
Product: BreezeCompany: SwedeseDesigner: Monica FörsterLaunched: 2006
”A detail that makes a difference”
”Obviously production in Sweden can be financially rewarding, but you need to be a brand that stands for quality, since that’s what people are paying for,” says Jiseborn. “It’s tougher if you are making anonymous, no-name products.”
Besides the success of the iconic Lamino, still selling well after 60 years, Swedese’s success in recent years can be contributed to the industry’s new focus on activity-based offices. In step with offices becoming physically smaller, and larger furniture like desks and storage shrinking in favour of ”meeting furniture”, Swedese sales, and especially the export market, are growing consistently: 2014 was the second best year in the company’s 70-year history with turnover of 164 million kronor, and the company plans to almost double that figure over the next three years. Meeting furniture is what they do best. ”All our furniture puts people’s communication in focus,” says Jiseborn, “whether it be in a traditional meeting room, a living room, or around a pedestal table for coffee.”
”We are always trying to find new perspectives in the way we do things and this includes finding new materials and more sustainable options,” says Muuto CEO Kristian Byrge.
The Fiber chair, designed by Copenhagen-based duo Iskos-Berlin, is a result of this approach. After two years of research and development, it was launched in 2014, at first glance looking like a traditional injectionmoulded plastic chair but actually made of a biocomposite that includes 25 percent wood fibres sourced from a sustainable Swedish pine forest. This affects the final feel, giving it a warm, unique texture. Theoretically, a Fiber chair can be remoulded after a number of years with the addition of less than one percent new material.
After the shape was developed, more than a year was dedicated to searching for and developing the perfect mix of wood-plastic composite in the shell’s construction. Not only concerned with finding the right strength, Muuto also wanted to investigate how the feel of the chair was influenced by the number and size of fibres. They chose a world-leading composite technology company as material suppliers. As the strength was critical, multiple tests were carried out via computer-aided load simulation, both onsite at the factory and at Denmark’s Institute of Technology.
The development process included making prototypes and 3D drawings, 3D computer modelling, and 3D-printed mock-ups in different materials, followed by new prototypes and more testing, before a decision was made on the right fiber mix.
”Promoting local talent world-wide”
Product: FiberCompany: MuutoDesigners: Iskos-BerlinLaunched: 2013
”Promoting local talent world-wide”
The Fiber chair is predominantly produced in Scandinavia – the fibres are from Sweden, as is the steel in the frames, and it is moulded and assembled in Denmark. All Muuto furniture is made in Europé, and particularly Scandinavia, due to know-how and production quality – but some accessories are produced in China.
Founded in 2006, Muuto was the first design-based company in Denmark to receive funding from venture capital firm Vækstfonden. In less than two years, founders Peter Bonnén and Kristian Byrge had developed their idea into an award-winning enterprise with exports to 15 countries, under the slogan “new Nordic”. Today, nine years later, Muuto has over 60 pieces in production, exporting to markets in Europe, the Americas and the Far East, and employs around 55 people in Denmark. In the last decade, Muuto has played an important role in Scandinavian design, finding, pushing and promoting young local talent, and the Fiber chair is a step in a new and important direction – investigating more sustainable materials.
Last year saw the 30th birthday of the iconic Capisco chair by Peter Opsvik, one of Scandinavian furniture‘s biggest successes. Interest was lukewarm upon its launch in 1984 and it was ten years before anyone really took any notice of Capisco, but today it’s exported internationally and sales continue to grow. “It’s good to be patient and ‘wait out’ an item of furniture – you need to have a gut feeling and be able to tell when you’re sitting on gold,” says Scandinavian Business Seating senior vice president Christian Lodgaard.
The result of a 2007 merger between Norwegian companies Håg, RBM and RH, Scandinavian Business Seating had a healthy mindset and strong environmental reputation from the start – Håg was the very first office chair manufacturer given the right to use the official Nordic ecolabel, the Swan. And not only is 95 percent of the Capisco recyclable, but 43 percent is manufactured from recycled material – originally PET bottle caps, which at the time in Norway couldn’t be recycled along with the bottle. Scandinavian Business Seating today is partnered with RondoPlast in Ystad, Sweden, and each year receives 250 tonnes of recycled material for Capisco’s manufacture.
The company adopts the same approach to all its furniture – existing items as well as those in development. Tools have been created so the environmental impact of a piece can be measured during its development and customers can compare its CO2 emissions online. Each chair is designed and manufactured according to the same basic life-cycle principles, taking weight, number of components, material, as well as life length into consideration.
“Sitting on gold“
Product: CapiscoCompany: Scandinavian Business SeatingDesigner: Peter OpsvikLaunched: 1984
“Sitting on gold“
”It‘s easy to talk about how recyclable a piece of furniture is, but today we can go a step further and manufacture it from recycled materials,” says Lodgaard. We can close the circle right now.“
This, of course, means large investments not only in terms of labour, innovation and technology, but also tools. Depending on how complicated a new chair is, it usually takes three to four years to develop it – 30,000 hours of product development, and in the region of €3m in investment. Today, Scandinavian Business Seating sees an industry all working towards the same goal, but many competitors are still involved in ‘greenwashing’ – small, ineffectual efforts to appear conscientious in the eyes of consumers. „Interior designers and architects need to be alert, well-informed and more knowledgeable than before,” says Lodgaard. SB Seatings has its entire production in Scandinavia – headquarters in Oslo and factories in Røros, Norway, and Nässjö, Sweden. ”We don‘t do it just for the sake of it, but because it‘s extremely effective, if you think in terms of industry and volume production.”
Different kinds of noise – rattling, scraping, loud, rebounding voices – can change the experience of a room. Unpleasant noises can affect well-being, concentration and ability to learn, and Sigrid Strömgren realised this while working on a project with noise experts at the Sahlgrenska Academy. She visited nursery schools where staff had taken matters into hand and developed alternative solutions. “They had taped material onto table tops and stuck tennis balls to chair legs to reduce the sound,“ Strömgren says. “I felt it was my responsibility to design furniture which worked in terms of sound right from the beginning. I wanted to get to the source.“
During her subsequent masters studies at HDK, Strömgren focused on two of the most common noise-producing public furniture types: the laminate table and steel pipe chair. What could she do to stop them making so much noise? She built up a “silent material library“ of noise-damping resources, and took sound measurements of over 50 combinations which, little by little, led to the ultimate combination – the laminate she used for the Silent Whisper table, and which Materia chose to develop further and produce. The table has been given the Red Dot Award and the material combination is patented.
Silent Whisper goes direct to the source and doesn’t try to reduce sounds already made. It prevents sound actually occurring. The table’s greatest strength is that it combines a resilient laminate sheet with powerfully improved acoustic capabilities.
”Invisible function”
Product: Silent WhisperCompany: MateriaDesigner: Sigrid StrömgrenLaunched: 2008
”Invisible function”
Because of the material combination, the sound of porcelain clanking on the surface is halved. If you furnish with a Silent Whisper table, the sound level is lowered – both because clattering and scraping sounds are reduced, and because people don’t need to shout to be heard over background noise. This doesn’t mean the table replaces traditional sound absorbers, however – in a noisy environment with hard, reflective surfaces, you need both.
“Previously, people didn’t think so much about this issue. The customer bought a table and later discovered something needed to be done about the sound levels,“ says Materia product developer Krister Jonsson, who was involved in developing the table. The solution was to stick different sorts of sound absorbers to the underside of the table top, which in practice only makes a difference if you are lying under the table.
Materia was formed in 1992 and two years later started production in its own factory. Today there are three developers working on new products. “It’s not the furniture itself that’s interesting,“ says Jonsson, “but rather what happens when the end user makes use of it.“ Silent Whisper is celebrating seven years on the market and today, there are far more companies working with products connected in some way to sound. Noise is no longer an invisible environmental problem. “We have become more conscious and are putting more resources into our sound environment,“ says Strömgren.
For more info about the exhibition:
Presslink: http://picasaweb.google.com/fargblanche/insidescandinaviandesign
Thanks to: BENDINGGROUPfor making the wood construction