Hello! I’m back from the holidays – and almost a month away from work – with an introduction to a new Danish brand that I think should be on your radar.
COMMON SEATING works with leading designers – the likes of Bjarke Ingels, Studio David Thulstrup, Geckeler Michels and Baum und Pferdagarten – to create simple, well-designed sofas at a reasonable cost. So far the company has developed a small, curated collection that are all available online, starting from €1,400. The designs have a high end look – using Kvadrat fabrics – but without the hefty price tag; COMMON SEATING’s mark-up in price is two times the production cost, while typically for brands it’s nearer five. They can do that because they don’t have any shops and they ship directly from the factory.
‘We are driven by design, and therefore the collective of designers driving us are the most radical and yet sensible designers out there.
These are the people who dream about how they might enrich people’s lives through design. We’re not collaborating because they make nice furniture, we chose them because they know how to make great skyscrapers, clothing, and things people live in or with daily.
Design for us is all about the experience of context. An object’s context to the space it resides in, and everything besides the object itself. It helps define the form and functionality, and eventually with who the object will resonate.
You’ll notice none of our products look alike, and that’s because no two humans really are alike.’
I chatted to Uffe Jordan, the co-founder and CEO of COMMON SEATING, about the birth of the brand and the ethos behind it – scroll down to read the interview.
What was the idea behind founding COMMON SEATING? What was your journey up to this point?
In short, COMMON SEATING is a sofa brand that aims to challenge the existing sofa industry. Today, the industry seems to have two poles – either you can get low quality sofas, or you can get more high-end really expensive sofas. We believe that there is an in-between. So in short, COMMON SEATING wants to offer really good quality made sofas with a high design profile at affordable prices.
We do this by cutting of the middleman/retailers – we aim to sell the sofas directly to the customer through our own flagship showrooms and online. By doing this, we don’t need to multiply the production cost by three to four times as we know is the industry standard – we can do with a factor two, which in the end leads to a lower price for the end client without compromising on the quality and design.
So far we have have launched four sofas and have a showroom in Copenhagen. We have some new interesting designs eg. with Bjarke Ingels Group launching soon – so stay tuned for that!
What is the ethos behind the brand?
COMMON SEATING is about furnishing for the point of using and designing for the sake of people. You don’t buy love, you give it. Occasionally, chairs should be knocked around, tables sat upon, and couches slept on. It’s what happens in real life. It’s YOUR life that enriches the furniture and not the other way around.
What designers do you work with? How do you choose them?
We do a mix of internationally well-known and upcoming designers, who we believe have an interesting design language that works well with our brand – we are sofa aficionados, so we are constantly looking at what is happening in the design world and then we approach those we believe fits our brand.
And how does the design process work with them?
I believe that we are less rigid than the industry in general since we are smaller and more adaptive to the individual designer. Every designer is different, so in order to get the best result we need to make them feel comfortable working with us. As a result, we see designers bringing more innovative designs to the table that they wouldn’t suggest for more traditional design companies.
Which is your favourite design in the collection?
My personal favourite design so far is the Mooner from Studio David Thulstrup as it has original and interesting design combined with high quality materials.
Who else would you love to work with?
We would like to do a collaboration with an international artist such as painter or the like, as we believe it could give a new dimension to how people experience sofa design.
Where do you see the brand going in the future, what can we expect from COMMON SEATING?
Since we’re still so new on the market, the current plan is to develop the things mentioned – and to keep challenging the sofa design industry by moving to other dimensions of who / what people associate with a furniture designer (e.g. the aforementioned artist).
Thank you for chatting to me Uffe. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for this brand, what a strong line-up of names! Next time I’m in Copenhagen, I know I’ll be stopping by their showroom to check out the designs in person. You can have a look at all of them on their website www.commonseating.com
All images courtesy COMMON SEATING
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