Øivind Slaatto,
furniture designer
Øivind Slaatto is the founder of SLAATTO DESIGN studio and founding member of Danish Design Makers. Øivind graduated from the Danish Design School and studied music at the Royal Danish Academy of Music.
Challenging the brief
Øivind always challenges a brief. He rarely answers a brief as it is, but rather he attempts to figure out its foundation, and then he sharpens it.
In the blind date project, he gave himself the task of making an upholstered design using an absolute minimum of fabric and foam since those are among the high emitting materials in a piece of upholstery furniture. Upholstery is rarely just one material but consists of foam, wadding, textile, and maybe zippers or buttons.
Øivind is trying to make a structure that supports the right places and at the same time is very flexible. He has experimented with 3D printing some shaping structures in a flexible material and has examined several technical materials. Most of which have shown to be dead ends.
To me, a good design process can and should include unsuccessful attempts and ideas. I cannot and will not create a design just from thinking. Some things need to be tested in the real world. Some things must be felt, touched, and tried out. I make everything myself in my workshop together with my assistant. This gives us the flexibility to change direction as often as I need to end up with the right design”.
In the end, Øivind has decided to work with wood, and he has cut down to the absolute minimum amount that can sustain the intended functions. He can create the flexibility, the comfort, and the durability his design requires by using only three millimeters of flexible veneer.
Øivind is also designing for disassembly to ensure that the product can be easily repaired.
Two themes – two messages
Øivind imagines that it will be a challenge to communicate about both themes in this project. What is most important? And to whom? He thinks that for the greater society, the industry in general, and visitors at the exhibition it should be the reduction theme that gets the most attention. This is the most important message in his eyes. While the blind date as a commercial context might be the more interesting part to the participating designers and companies.
“The Blind date experiment is fun and interesting – quite playful and challenging how things and collaborations are done.”
One advantage of the project is that it is a non-obligatory opportunity for both companies and designers to encounter valuable partnerships with people they didn’t know before.
Øivind also imagines that many companies (and designers) use their classic items as a sleeping pad, preventing them from leaving their comfort zone. We are all creatures of habit. This project forces companies to describe their values as something else than their old classics.
Øivind believes the best projects come alive in collaborations. As a designer, he sees it as his task to challenge his customers and himself by asking critical questions and starting a dialogue. He doesn’t want to just fulfill the first version of a brief;
I want to make sure that I create something useful and meaningful, and I wish to push us out of our comfort zone. What motivates me is to create something that in some way can improve the way we do things. If I can create something that is more attractive with fewer resources. Then I’ve succeeded in making less more.”
This article reflects the designer’s own opinion and Målbar does not necessarily agree with their statements about materials, processes, etc.
Climate calculations and insights
Øivind’s lounge chair named Venair consists of a powder coated aluminum base with a coherent seat and back made in oiled wood veneer. It has an estimated total climate impact of 70 kg of CO2eq.
Øivind also designed a loose cover for the chair to increase comfort. He made two versions of this; one made of 37% recycled polyester and one made of 100% recycled wool.
The design containing the polyester cover has an estimated total climate emission of 95 kg of CO2eq, while the design containing the wool cover has an estimated total climate emission of 100 kg of CO2eq.
If Øivind had chosen virgin wool for his cover, the total estimated climate footprint would be 240 kg of CO2eq!
The designer’s choice to design for disassembly of the metal base ensures that it will be recycled at its end of life. This provides a credit of approximately 14% -18% (depending on the version) of the total footprint.
The choice of a no-foam design has reduced a major part of the footprint. Limiting the amount of wood veneer has less effect since this material has a low footprint anyway.
The final result is a surprisingly low weight lounge chair with a footprint that can be a lot lower if a less emitting material than average global aluminum is chosen.
Photo by Kristine Funch
Explanation of climate bar
The climate bar shows how the emissions from the design are distributed between 10 sources within the product life cycle. Here you can see that the biggest impact stems from the materials, in this case the metals. However, there is also a noticeable part of the climate bar below zero, which means that 12.6 kg of CO2eq are detracted from the final result. This illustrates the credit given for having design the metal parts for recycling at end of life by making the component easy to be disassembled from the rest of the materials.
There are emissions from the use phase on all products, because of the waste that is generated from returned products from consumers.
Assumptions
- The plywood slats are assumed to generate 15% manufacturing waste
- For metal profiles and metal sheet components, a 10% waste has been assumed
- Målbar assumes that metals, plastics, and textiles are produced according to the global average unless we know differently. All other materials are assumed to be produced in the EU
- We assume a transport distance by lorry from supplier to warehouse of 1,000 km
- We assume a transport distance from warehouse to final client of 1,000 km
Målbar builds their assumptions on their experience with industrial production and LCA’s on manufacturing companies.
Context
Målbar participates in Danish Design Makers’ 2024 design challenge, The Blind Date experiment where 19 designers and design duos answer furniture briefs from anonymous European furniture companies. The designers use Målbar’s climate screening tool to gain insigths into the climate emissions of materials and production processes, learning about the climate impact of their design choices. Ultimately, the total climate footprint of each design will be calculated and presented at ORGATEC in Cologne on October 22nd-25th 2024.