6–10 February 2008

Offecct maintains its position as a design leader
Offecct reinforces its position as one of Sweden’s leading furniture companies with the launch of several innovative new products at the Stockholm Furniture Fair 2008. The furniture includes new children’s play furniture from Anders Breitholtz and a multifunctional table with handles designed by Satyendra Pakhalé. One of Offecct’s strongest features is its collaboration with innovative designers with an international reputation. This spring’s collection includes new ventures with Sweden’s Anders Breitholtz and India-born Satyendra Pakhalé alongside more established designers like Eero Koivisto.

The nicely balanced collection reflects Offecct’s vision – contemporary furniture design that exudes Scandinavian simplicity. The furniture is developed for all kinds of creative spaces in an office environment but is equally well suited to a private home.

Just as important as design and quality is a comprehensive environmental strategy – something that is unique to Offecct. For many years, consideration for both people and the environment has characterised everything the company does, ranging from what adhesive is used at the office, to the choice of materials, energy consumption, transport and sustainability. A large proportion of Offecct’s product range has recently received the Nordic Swan ecolabel from SIS Miljömärkning, which administers and awards the label in Sweden.

In conjunction with the launch of the Amazonas table designed by Eero Koivisto, Offecct is taking its environmental awareness one step further and launching a long-term cooperative project with the Children’s Rainforest. This Swedish not-for-profit organisation was founded 20 years ago and is still run by teacher Eha Kern from Sorunda outside Stockholm. The organisation’s concept is to buy and preserve the rain forest to protect it from devastation and to preserve animal and plant life. A number of national parks have been created in this way. For
each set of Amazonas tables sold, SEK 90 (approx. EUR 9.60) will be donated to purchase more land in the Amazon rain forest. Read more about this exciting project at www.barnensregnskog.net.

Eero Koivisto combines poetry with function
Eero Koivisto, one of Sweden’s best-known designers, is launching two new products for Offecct in the spring of 2008. Amazonas and Float High have completely different forms but share the same basic design approach. Like so many times before, Koivisto has begun with the idea of combining various parts to create a new whole, in the same way as beehive structures or DNA molecules.

The Amazonas table
series originated when Koivisto saw aerial photographs of the rain forest where the tree crowns created a dense ceiling – many parts forming a whole. He immediately wanted to create a table with the same effect, or, rather, he wanted to create several such tables that could be combined to form a cluster. Amazonas is a small, highly functional table that can be used individually by a bed or several can be combined and placed by a sofa. The tables are sold in sets of three in three different shades of green, and can be arranged so they partly overlap.

The table’s five obliquely set legs make it look like something halfway between a sculpture and a table. The concept comes from the tree trunks in the rain forest, which grow in whichever direction there is space. Koivisto says he wants the tables to be both poetic and thought provoking. The fact that Amazonas is the product he is most pleased with right now is not just due to its design:

“When I was creating Amazonas I was thinking a lot about environmental issues. As a designer, one can try to create an environmentally sustainable product that people don’t want to throw away. That is why Amazonas is a mono-material – in this case steel – that is 100 per cent recyclable. In addition, some of the money from every table sold will go to a project to save the rain forests.”



Float High
Eero Koivisto uses an architectural approach to create low-key furniture with a strong sense of presence – something that is very obvious in his new sofa, Float High. The design was prompted by his own needs, which involved a lot of travelling and many meetings in public settings.

“I noticed the same behaviour in everyone involved in business meetings. People lean forward in the very low seats, try to conceal their computer screen, and hold their hand around their mouth while talking on their mobile phone. I wondered whether I could create a piece of furniture that felt like it was a small, separate room. I started with Float, which I had previously designed for Offecct, and pulled up the edges just far enough so that when you sit up very straight you can see over the edge, but when you sit back you get a private and secluded space.”

Koivisto sees it as a challenge to alter the typology of something so archetypical as a rectangular sofa – the one piece of furniture that is perhaps the strongest interior decoration symbol of our times. How can we combine the parts so that something new emerges? The challenge consists in putting the form into a new context.

Tempo
Writing plate in laminated wood. Frame in wood.
Seat in coald foam, upholstered in fabric or leather. Chromed frame.
Design by Andrea Ruggiero.

Offecct introduces Palma:
a comfortably distinctive easy chair by Khodi Feiz

The Dutch designer Khodi Feiz has again created a new furniture line for the Swedish design company Offecct. This time it is a lounge chair inspired by the palm of a hand cradling the human body. The chair’s simple mono-form describes the seat, back support, and arm-rests in a single gesture.

With its frame of wood fibre by-products and seam-free upholstery, Palma is a good environmental choice. Above all, Khodi Feiz and Offecct have worked together to create an easy chair with a long lifespan. The chair is both physically durable and has a timeless, elegant design.

The chair has a relaxed shape that invites comfortable and flexible sitting postures.

The chair is clearly informal. Its designer would like to see Palma in people’s homes as much as in office environments. Palma is beautiful as a stand-alone piece of furniture but several can also be arranged together to create a distinct pattern in a room.

Palma is Khodi Feiz’s second product for Offecct. In 2002 the company presented his K-line functional living accessories. The collaboration between the designer and the furniture manufacturer is very successful. Feiz finds the Scandinavian design style particularly appealing:

“There is something very attractive about Scandinavian design. It is light, elegant, and highly intelligent – precisely the same impression that I want my own designs to make.”

Offecct collaborates with one of the major figures of the design world:
“Satyendra Pakhalé’s design makes life a little easier”

One of Europe’s most interesting designers is now associated with Offecct. For spring 2008 the company is presenting the Grip Satellite table – a typical Satyendra Pakhalé product designed for the modern individual.

Satyendra Pakhalé believes in good design wherever it comes from. It is when design is placed within a context that it becomes interesting and creates meaning. Encounters between people form one source of his inspiration. He argues that today’s informal lifestyle places different demands on design than those made in decades such as the 1930s and ’40s, a time when he says that design was linear and boring. Today the design process requires a more playful and relaxed approach.

The concept for the Grip Satellite table was born in this same spirit. Grip is a table that is easy to pick up (grip!) and move thanks to the small handle on the tabletop that stands out like a small functional detail. The handle is a clear symbol of our modern lifestyle – we want complete flexibility. On a sunny day we can take the table outside, at home we can put books onto it beside our favourite easy chair, at the office we want to be able to move about spontaneously with our laptop or coffee cup on the table. Grip is designed to make our lives easier in everyday situations.

Satyendra Pakhalé compares the table to a satellite that can rotate around within a setting and be moved from place to place – at work, by the sofa, in a meeting room, outdoors. The handle replaces wheels, which have the same function. Why reinvent the wheel when you can add a handle instead?

He chose Corian®, for its hygienic properties (easy to clean), because it is heavy (stability and quality), and, not least, because it is extremely durable. Durability is an important issue for Pakhalé. Every choice must be made correctly – from the product’s production, packing and transport to how it will finally be recycled. He believes that if a product does not last a long time then it has no right to exist.

“Offecct has a terrific understanding of how modern individuals work and live today,” says Satyendra Pakhalé. “The company is also at the forefront of environmental issues, which has led to a stimulating collaboration in complete agreement.”

“Satyendra Pakhalé is an incredibly exciting figure on the international design stage right now,” comments Anders Englund, head of design at Offecct. “His design just make life a little easier.”

Spoon Low
by Monica Förster
Frame in laminated wood with cold foam.
Upholstered in fabric or leather. Support in chrome.