Selected projects across different categories

The brief
The Council family is the result of a design project that began more than 10 years ago. In 2011, Salto & Sigsgaard entered the design competition, issued by the Danish Arts Foundation, to create new furniture for the Trusteeship Council Chamber in the UN building, NYC. Specifically new chairs and table for the Secretariat and tables for the delegates encircling the Secretariat’s central seating area.

Our entry won – which led to a close collaboration with the manufacturer Onecollection and the idea to create a whole Council family inspired by the original version.

The concept
The DNA of the Council family is comfort. The original version of the Council chair was designed as a good desk chair that offered good seating comfort for people at work – in this case, the members of the Secretariat. These new members of the Council family should cover all other situations that also call for soft, comfortable seating – in private sitting rooms, restaurants, receptions, lobbies and other public spaces.

The solution
Comfort comes from the upholstered seat and back as well as the flexibility created by the gap between the seat and the back and the steel construction supporting the chair. To accommodate the needs and styles of different interior spaces, the two types of chairs come with either four legs or a single column base. Both versions are upholstered so they can easily be refitted with either textile or leather when wear and tear or the need for a new look call for it. In the first series, we have worked with a mix of different colours as well as textile and leather upholstery, to allow for contrast and make the shape and silhouette of the chairs stand out.

The brief
Fritz Hansen was looking for a new table concept that could be manufactured in a variety of sizes and serve several functions: as a meeting room table, a work desk or a dining table.

The concept
I wanted to create a simple and informal meeting table that would invite people in and establish a calm atmosphere in a room.

Craftsmen working in fields of carpentry, boat building or forestry will know the sawhorse or trestle – the construction used to hold a tabletop or another type of heavy load during the work process. That’s what inspired the construction supporting the tabletop for PLURALIS.

Functionally, the trestle construction makes the table very stable and gives the people sitting round the table plenty of legroom. Aesthetically, it makes the design of the table very easy to decode.
Despite its solidity, the construction actually appears light and inviting, primarily because of the soft outward curves of the legs. Also, when you walk around the table, a real-time transformation seems to take place as the profiles in the trestle structure create the illusion of dimensions changing.

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The brief
The NAP chair was commissioned by Fritz Hansen in 2008. They were looking to produce a new, functional stacking chair with great comfort. The successor to ICE, only in a lower price range.

The concept
I read somewhere that Hans J. Wegner once said that there’s no better seating position than ‘the next one’. And he’s so right. We shift in chairs to find a new, more comfortable position or to allow for a new type of ‘activity’. These movements are critical cues when you’re designing a chair.

For years, I’ve been observing how people sit in chairs. I discovered that there are basically three standard positions – ‘normal’, ‘active’ and ‘passive’ – matching what we typically do when we sit in chairs: we eat or socialise; we work; or we relax.

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The brief
Initially, LITTLE FRIEND was part of a larger brief for a series of smaller products, including coat hangers, waste paper bins and magazine stands. As part of this collection, Fritz Hansen also wanted a small side table to go with Arne Jacobsen’s ‘Egg’ and ‘Swan’ series.

Of all these products, LITTLE FRIEND was the only product that actually went into production. It still serves as a side table to Arne Jacobsen’s classics. But as the concept developed, it proved to meet other needs as well.

The concept
Flexibility has become a key part of modern working life. We not only work from different locations; we’re also expected to make the most of our time when we’re on the go, which means working in airports, hotel rooms or lounges, reception areas – and of course in more private spaces such as our own sitting room.

Apart from creating a worthy ‘friend’ to Jacobsen’s classics, I wanted to design a table that lent itself to ‘the flexibility of work’. I was keen to find a solution to those awkward positions we all find ourselves in, hunched over our laptop, balancing it awkwardly on our knees.

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The brief
In connection with the extensive five-year renovation of the United Nation HQ building in NY (2008 to 2013), the Danish Arts Foundation issued a competition to refurbish the Trusteeship Council Chamber, originally designed by one of the great Danish modernists, Finn Juhl in the early 1950s. Specifically new furniture for the central seating area – that is, the Secretariat’s table and chairs – as well as the delegates’ tables that encircle it.

The project was administered by the Danish Ministry of Culture in close collaboration with the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs – and the Danish Arts Foundation was responsible for the competition itself. Thomas Sigsgaard and I was invited to participate in this competition.

The concept
Given that the chair was designed for the Secretariat’s table in the Trusteeship Council Chamber – where the secretaries would be seated sometimes for long hours – the essential premise for the Secretariat chair was obviously to ensure great seating comfort.

Inspired by Finn Juhl’s designs – particularly his deliberate exposure of construction parts and the contact zone between the furniture shell and the human body – we wanted to produce a very simple chair that consisted of only two main parts: a shell and a base part.

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The brief
Bjørn Stegger, former Head of Design at Fritz Hansen, had seen RUNNER at the Danish Cabinetmakers Exhibition in May 1997. He invited me to join the competition to design a new stackable chair for indoor and outdoor use. The brief was ambitious. The company was looking for no less than ‘the chair for the future’ from Fritz Hansen.

In 1999 – after two long years of sketching, testing and conceptual adjustments – I entered by my bid. Fortunately, it matched what Fritz Hansen was looking for. Three years’ worth of further discussions, adjustments and testing followed. And finally, in 2002, ICE was launched at the Orgatech exhibition in Cologne.

The concept
The concept for ICE had to tick several boxes – which kind of explains why it took so long to develop.

Apart from providing optimal seating comfort for the body, this chair should be easy to stack, and, as a first in the Fritz Hansen collection, allow for indoor as well as outdoor use. Basically, this double function meant balancing ‘light enough’ and ‘strong enough’. Indoors, you want a chair that looks refined and elegant. Outdoors, you want it to be robust and able to withstand any kind of weather.

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The brief
RUNNER was my second chair project. As it hadn’t been commissioned by anyone, there was no real brief. Only my own ambition to create a multifunctional chair with really good seating comfort. I wanted it to offer relevant functional features such easy stacking and coupling in rows, for example for conference use.

Since my first chair project was called BLADE, it made sense to call this second one RUNNER. Obviously, a tribute to Ridley Scott’s cinematic masterpiece, Bladerunner, which is one of my favourite films. But it also, quite appropriately, became a tribute to the Danish middle distance runner, Wilson Kiepketer who held the 800m world record during 1990s – and who kindly agreed to feature in the marketing campaign promoting the chair.

The concept
In the 1990s, formalism seemed to define the agenda for chair design. With RUNNER, I wanted to move away from this rigid, form-driven paradigm and get back to the real and more human-centred purpose: to provide comfortable support for the body. The concept of the double curved back is inspired by the spine of the human body and really the feature that makes the chair so comfortable.

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The brief
The New Carlsberg Foundation (NCF) is a private foundation, established more than a century ago by the famous Danish brewer, Carl Jacobsen and his wife. Funded mainly by dividends from shares in the Carlsberg brewery, the NCF’s purpose is to support and promote art in Danish society, making it available to the widest possible audience.

As part of a restoration project, Salto & Sigsgaard was invited to come up adjustments to Wilhelm Wohlert existing interior from the 1970s and develop a series of new furniture systems for NCF’s storage of art.

The solution
Our adjustments to the interior of the NCF was based on the idea of creating a cohesive feel through the building, establishing a clear connection between its five floors and making the building itself more of a ‘transit’ for art rather than a museum.

We produced six general furniture systems whose primary function was to handle the various types of art that the NCF houses:

• Libraries: A grid system of massive Oregon pine wood
• 3D boards: Linoleum boards with Oregon pine edges and customised holes to hang the art pieces
• Painting storage: Same grid system as used for the libraries
• Meeting table: A massive Oregon pine wood table designed for the meeting room
• Podiums: Sheets of lacquered MDF with a linoleum surface
• Gallery lists: Massive Oregon pine rails to hold the paintings

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The brief
UV technology is known for its disinfectant properties – a fast, effective and chemical-free way of killing viruses and bacteria. It has been used in the healthcare sector for years to disinfect rooms, surfaces, materials and air. And its effect has been documented: a 10- second exposure to UV rays is enough to kill 99% of certain bacteria and virus types.

Including the Covid-19 virus.

As the global pandemic escalated, Thomas Efsen, second-generation owner of EFSEN UV & EB TECHNOLOGY, and his team started to explore how the benefits of UV technology might be used more broadly by other sectors in society to ensure clean and safe environments.

They got in touch because they were keen to develop a solution that was functional in terms of ensuring effective disinfection of objects and, at the same time, worked as a piece of furniture that would blend in nicely in any setting. An approach the company has termed ‘designology’.

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