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TAKT presents dining desk for post-pandemic work-life designed by Pearson Lloyd
”It responds to the new home-office paradigm influenced by the pandemic where the furniture can be repurposed to suit the changing functions of the home throughout the day, as it shifts from workspace to domestic environment and back again,” says Henrik Lorensen, founder and CEO of the conscious design brand.
By JOHAN MAGNUSSON
25 Oct 2021

Launched in Copenhagen in 2019, Danish furniture brand TAKT wants to rethink the way to design, build, and sell furniture for the mutual benefit of people and planet, founder and CEO Henrik Lorensen tells.

— And also, to reinvent the Scandinavian design tradition for the modern day. We are working from a new set of design principles to deliver delightful furniture that is circular from the start and offered at reasonable prices.

And, it’s not just empty words. Today, TAKT is one of few European design brands to be designated a B-Corp and the only brand to consistently have every one of its products certified with the EU Ecolabel, meaning that all stages of the production cycle meet the highest possible environmental standards.

— We aim to clearly explain our efforts through transparency and recognised external certification. All our products are consistently eco-certified — not just a selected ”eco range”, but all our products. It’s a mantra for us. To get this certification there are strict requirements for materials used — FSC certified wood, no harmful chemicals, and so forth — as well as for how the products are made. Additionally, for all our products we are mapping the impact of the greenhouse gas emissions during the entire process from basic materials to production, shipping, daily use, and the final disposal after many years of use. This way, you can see the composition of the climate footprint on each of our products, and we use this internally to keep driving down the footprint and guiding our product development. We have simply installed an internal ”carbon tax” on products that depends on greenhouse gas emissions. This tax, we use to offset the remaining carbon emissions through a recognized approach published by Oxford University.

— All our furniture is crafted regionally at workshops in Denmark and Latvia. Our leftover material is pressed into briquettes and used for local heating at the workshop or for the wood machines, thereby eliminating the need for oil and gas. We are trying to eliminate waste. And, avoiding short-term fashion trends for our furniture. Of course, some people have a desire to refresh their living space from time to time, but that belongs to smaller objects and stuff you can easily replace, not the big pieces.

As a direct-to-consumer brand, TAKT uses direct dialogue with its clients to follow up on feedback and requests. 

— Our Cross collection of chairs and tables, tells Lorensen, has become one of our most successful ranges since its launch. After growing demand for a longer table, we have decided to expand the Cross family with the new Cross Table 120 designed by Pearson Lloyd. The table responds to the new home-office paradigm influenced by the pandemic where the furniture can be repurposed to suit the changing functions of the home throughout the day, as it shifts from workspace to domestic environment and back again.

To develop the table, Pearson Lloyd has taken their existing design for the square Cross Table 75 and made a small but highly impactful adjustment. To allow for the addition of a larger tabletop (120x75cm), the studio has added just a single oak stretcher. This intervention separates the two sets of legs, elongating the ”cross” that gives the collection its name and thus allowing the structure to support the larger tabletop. This simple but ingenious modification creates an entirely new piece of furniture while making minimal impact on the production process and material requirement, keeping consumer cost and environmental impact to a minimum. Luke Pearson and Tom Lloyd at the prominent London-based design consultancy — working in multiple territories from the public realm, healthcare, and transportation to, as here, furniture — tell how TAKT’s drive for sustainable design has pushed them in the right way.

— It fits very nicely with our vision of the future, the duo tell. We have always strived to produce high-quality designs well considered in terms of material use, build, and use. It was a timely challenge that we embraced fully. Considering box size, how many screws are used, and the amount of materials we use from a sustainable standpoint is now critical if we are to design responsibly. From a creative perspective, we find this far from restricting it simply refines the target we all need to be aiming at. We have had a damaging period where these issues are often considered too late or simply not at all — as mentioned, TAKT’s philosophy fits very well with our ambitions.

With the addition of a single stretcher bar, the intuitive structure is adapted to allow for a larger 120x75cm table top.