Process of making a ‘furniture designer’ interview.
We had the pleasure last week of visiting Lisbon for an interview with Portuguese brand Wewood in their recently opened flagship store.
Pfeifer designed their iconic CAROUSEL sideboard for the brand in 2016 and Leonhard talked about this piece, his process and design philosophy with the brands creative director Joana Marcelino and communication director Hugo Ferro.
Thanks so much for having us and as always, it was a pleasure to hang out in your beautiful store in the heart of Lisbon.
The Carousel sideboard is a special piece of furniture.
By Leonhard Pfeifer:
Combining good design and beautiful materials, together with the production values of the producer Wewood Portuguese Joinery, we created a piece of furniture that is exclusive and intended to become an heirloom of the future. ‘A legacy piece’ per-say, which is intended to be valued by successive generations over time.
The Carousel sideboard, designed exclusively for Portuguese brand Wewood by Leonhard Pfeifer and launched in 2016.
We had followed the development of Wewood for some time before we had the opportunity to work with them. Wewood challenged us to create a “functional design that was both useful for day-to-day life, yet special enough to be the highlight of a dining room”. They were looking for a “solution that was visually and functionally surprising, that could store heavy and delicate items and that was functionally different, made from solid wood, but including other materials”.
Although similar in substance, our initial submission was a more elaborate piece, with all the bells and whistles - undulating drawers, brass handles and legs and a brass drinks tray that sat in the carousel section. In subsequent rounds of development - I think we prepared nine different presentations over the time as the design developed - various aspects of our original design were trimmed, with new elements added, each stage refining the focus on the central idea of the cabinet, the Carousel.
It is the carousel which offers the functionally surprising element - it is a novel feature of the sideboard and one that gains it much attention at exhibitions and in showrooms. We have designed many drinks cabinets for various customers and so the idea of incorporating drink storage functionality was natural. We looked at different ways to realise this feature, but settled on the open slats, which afford a view into the rotating cylindrical storage compartment.
The marble top was an addition during development and proved tricky to implement. Ultimately we opted for a chamfered edge with a solid timber lip. The wooden collar around the carousel section dispensed with the impossibly thin connection between the two sides. This collar has a subtle curve as it meets the back of the sideboard so that the marble doesn’t taper to a thin slice, but finishes more bluntly.
The legs as well were an element that became a focus and we investigated the cabinet on a wide variety of options before we settled on timber legs that integrated into the side panels. These are subtle and coherent in the construction of the cabinet.
Wewood’s parent factory has been making solid wood furniture for over five decades. Their objective is that everything they do is driven by an unwavering passion for creating a product of excellence. As such Carousel is a result of their rigorous process for high-quality manufacturing. Although the design of the sideboard has been rationalised for volume production, it is in fact produced in small production runs that and finished by hand.
The sideboard is constructed in solid oak or solid walnut panels, but for uniformity of the grain, these solid panels are then veneered, to achieve a more consistent and refined finish. Advanced hardware is employed on the drawers, which use a high-tech “soft-close, press to open” mechanism. The bi-fold door is also a nice mechanism that offers a further surprising function.
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We look forward to watching the final video and keep you all posted of its release.
Pfeifer Design is an independent award-winning design studio established in London 2003. Now based in Portugal we consistently design highly covetable pieces of furniture, to brief for our ever growing b2b partnerships with retail brands and producers globally. Get in touch with us if you want to create your own, best selling furniture for your brand ~ studio [at] pfeifer dot design.
x Karla and Leonhard
Pfeifer Design Furniture