Hopefully, the encouragingly warm weather that re-introduced itself to us all over the recent bank holiday weekend had you making use of your gardens or terraces for the first time this year?

And, if you found yourself looking at your existing outdoor furniture over the weekend and thinking it deserved an upgrade, then we would very much like to introduce the Cane-Line range of outdoor furniture to you…

Cane-Line is of Danish origin and has been producing specialist, weather proof furniture, worldwide, for 25 years and Aram Store is very pleased to have recently become their main dealer in London.  We have just taken delivery of their latest designs that were exhibited at Salone Internazionale del Mobile Fair in Milan and they are now on display here at Drury Lane.

Their use of the phrase ‘life made comfortable’ encapsulates the philosophy behind a mission to add value to the environments where you unwind and relax by putting aesthetics and functionality hand in hand.

The range consists of sofas, lounge chairs, dining chairs and tables and a selection of side and coffee tables… even rugs; all finished in weather-proof and virtually maintenance-free materials such as polyethylene and coated polyesters that are UV resistant, colourfast and resistant to water or frost damage.

Sofa and chair cushions are upholstered in Cane-line Tex® (a coated polyester fabric) and filled with QuickDryFoam® providing maximum drainage and air circulation which allows the cushions to dry faster – within 20 mins – after exposure to rain, dew or splashes from your pool!  The QuickDryFoam® also has antibacterial protection which prevents any risk of fungus or mould growth within the cushion.

We should also add that the Cane-Line range of furniture is available on a very short order lead time from stock in Denmark and can be delivered into our London warehouse within two weeks from the point of order.  So, there’s plenty of time to have your order delivered to you before the sunshine settles in for the summer… fingers crossed!

Quiet colours and timeless design are distinctive features throughout every piece of this new range and all products can be browsed within our outdoor section online or by visiting the Store on Drury Lane for a first-hand experience.

ARAM STORE

“Beautifully designed, consciously made…”

Aram Store is proud to present the new collection from Discipline Design – fresh from il Salone Internazionale del Mobile, the International Furniture Fair in Milan. The exhibition will run from 26 April to 18 May on the ground floor of the Store on Drury Lane.

As well as current designs such as the Re-turned Birds, Drifted Stools and Companion Lamp, the exhibition will feature prototypes of new designs presented for the first time at this year’s Milan Fair. Discipline’s pop-up shop and garden café were the talk of the Fair and we are delighted to host the official launch of Discipline’s designs in the UK.

Focusing on natural materials and real values, Discipline makes beautiful designs for daily life. Their manifesto is: “Sharing design, finding solutions to problems, interpreting behaviour, bringing discipline into projects, everyday simplicity, real values, today’s luxuries, excite, not forgetting to smile, energy, good feelings, in harmony, emotional experiences, long lasting, natural materials, beauty, awareness, rediscovering common sense.”

New prototypes on show will include the Slice cork desk tidy – one of the last designs from the great, late James Irvine; the Pocket armchair; Peg by Jonah Takagi; the Roule table and Roule bowls by Pauline Deltour; the Gemma box by Gemma Holt; the Bridge chair, stool and table by Ichiro Iwasaki, and many more.

Read more about Discipline Design on their blog and on their facebook page.

The collection exhibition runs from 26 April to 18 May 2013.

ARAM STORE

In collaboration with Hay of Denmark, the brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec have designed a range of furniture for the University of Copenhagen which is now available to the public. This collection resumes an old Scandinavian tradition of targeting specific architecture and specific needs in designing new furniture. Ronan Bouroullec explains “Since the last century, there is a tradition in Denmark of asking a designer to design the chairs when new schools or universities are built. We are proud to be part of the university history”.

The starting point for this series was an old university chair, architect Bernt Pedersen’s trestle chair. This chair is a simple and beautiful chair with an uncomplicated identity. The Bouroullecs’ interpretation has upheld the original chair typology (trestle chair) and sought to maintain the compelling simplicity of the original chair. Their intention was to create up-to-date educational furniture that meets the functional needs of a university but allied with greater originality and a more domestic expression.

According to Ronan Bouroullec the interior can contribute to making students feel at home, and provide a sense of balance: “One of the challenges that universities are facing today is that students do not stay at school after classes. The general aim of the project is to motivate students to stay on campus a little longer. So the idea was to do a chair which could be more domestic than a contract chair”. The seat and back are mounted in the centre of the seat creating a highly flexible and resilient comfort – the seat follows the movement of the user. The chair also has a flexible back, which bears similarity to the cantilever chairs, which was first designed by the Bauhaus school in Germany in the 1930’s.

The collection includes a chair, a barstool, two desks and several tables – all of which are available to pre-order now from Aram Store.

ARAM STORE

Excellent product knowledge is of paramount importance in the high standard of customer service that Aram offers. Training is a continuous process and one part of it is visiting our suppliers’ factories and showrooms. Last week we had the privilege to go to Denmark at the invitation of Carl Hansen & Son.

After an early flight to Copenhagen we arrived at the Rud Rasmussen workshop in the centre of the city. Rudolph Rasmussen founded his company in 1869 and it remained a family business until Jørgen – the third generation of Rasmussens – sold it to Carl Hansen & Son in December 2011 rather than allow it to close. The acquisition made perfect sense: both companies were family-owned, both were founded on strong principles of outstanding craftsmanship and rational serial production, both involved the close collaboration between architect/designer and cabinet-maker, both produce furniture of the highest quality. It also allowed Carl Hansen to bring designs by Mogens Koch and Kaare Klint into their range, the Folding Chair and the Safari Chair amongst them. Rud Rasmussen work in the same way that Carl Hansen worked ten years ago: a small workforce of highly skilled craftsmen produces every element of furniture by hand in traditional methods – inevitably a relatively slow process.

The Rud Rasmussen workshop in central Copenhagen

The afternoon was spent at the Carl Hansen showroom in the Valby area of the city, a vast space of industrial heritage – previously the barrel factory for the nearby Carlsburg brewery. Lengthy discussions ensued on the merits of the CH162, CH163 and CH102 sofas, and the beautiful CH110 desk.

The Carl Hansen showroom in Valby, Copenhagen

Hans Wegner’s CH163 Sofa

The next morning started early with a drive across Denmark to the factory in Aarup, just outside Odense. When Knud Erik Hansen – Carl’s grandson – took over leadership in January 2002, one of the first things that he did was to build a large new factory in order to allow production to take advantage of modern technology. This meant that lead times for the Wishbone Chair, for example, could be reduced from around 12 months to just 3 weeks (for some finishes). The entire workforce of cabinet-makers also made the move from the old Odense workshops to maintain the proud tradition of skilled craftsmanship and grew from 25 to over 90.

Most elements of the wooden furniture arrive from Danish sawmills rough cut to size. Vast CNC milling machines then turn, route and drill the legs, the cross-bars, the back supports etc with pin-point accuracy and precision at impressive speed. Each element is closely inspected and even the most minute flaw will mean it ends up in the reject bin. Passing inspection, it is sanded by hand to a perfect finish and assembled carefully into a chair. The lacquering process involves seven coats and then the most impressive part of the manufacture can commence: stringing the seat with over 120 metres of paper cord. This incredibly physical process is spectacular to watch – one hour for each wishbone, nine hours for the CH25 chair – the inevitable toll it takes on the craftsman’s forearms is relieved by an on-site masseur.

The backrest of the CH20 ‘Elbow’ Chair is sanded

The Wishbone Chair is carefully assembled from 14 separate parts

Lacquer is carefully applied in seven separate coats

The stringing takes 120 metres of paper cord and takes an hour for the Wishbone Chair

The most impressive things about the factory are its orderliness and its cleanliness – the environmental conditions in which the craftsmen work are extremely good. A significant investment was made in a huge ventilation system that removes all the sawdust from all the machines, which is then turned into pellets to burn in district heating plants. Safety is paramount, producing an unblemished record.

Watching the production process from raw timber to finished Wishbone Chair is invaluable in understanding the skill and precision with which it is made: craftsmanship that has evolved along with modern technology. One comment was “I can’t believe it doesn’t cost so much more”. This skill, the sustainability of resources (for each tree felled, at least two are planted) and the importance given to working conditions mean that investing in an authentic Wishbone Chair – or any other item from Carl Hansen’s range – gives you a superb piece of furniture of the highest quality and integrity which will last a lifetime, and beyond.

ARAM STORE

Last week Catherine and I flew to Denmark to visit Montana, who produce one of our favourite shelving systems. The range is extremely versatile, consisting of units in 42 basic sizes, as well as TV/Hi-fi and wardrobe solutions, which are available in 47 lacquer and veneer finishes. These units can be personalised to suit all of your storage needs, and you can have a lot of fun in the process!

Our first stop was Pakhus 48, where Montana showcase an extensive selection of their products in their vast showroom at Copenhagen’s Free Harbour. A wall of units that stretch on as far as the eye can see provide a visually impressive illustration of the breadth of their range. We were especially taken with the bright orange lacquered glass units and the purple units with asymmetrical doors, as well as the delicious breakfast that was laid on for us!

We were privileged to catch a glimpse of Peter Lassen, who designed the range and founded the company in 1982. His son Joakim, the current director, spoke to us about Montana’s philosophy, which is quite simply to create solutions that provide the ideal balance between functionality and aesthetics, and contribute to a better everyday life both at home and in the workplace – an outlook that resonates strongly with our own feelings about furniture here at Aram.

We saw many configurations at Pakhus, and also at the very homely Montana Mobile showroom in the heart of Copenhagen, which have provided us with lots of inspiration for future projects that will be relevant for both our Retail and Contract teams. We were also treated to a demonstration of Montana’s excellent loudspeakers by their creator Carsten Tingaard, who was highly knowledgeable and infectiously enthusiastic.

Day 2 of our trip took us to Haarby, where Montana’s production facilities are based. The tour of the factory was particularly illuminating, as our expert guide walked us step-by-step through the manufacturing process.

The units are made from high quality MDF, which is cut and sanded down into panels of the required shape and size. These panels are coated in three layers of a white water based lacquer, before the chosen lacquer colour, also water based, is applied.

Once all of the elements required for each order have been made and checked by hand to ensure their quality, the units are assembled. We spent a while talking to the men and women who put these units together, adding the doors, drawers, batons for wall mounting and so on. Their attention to detail is very impressive!

Finally the completed units are boxed up and ready to be shipped on to their new homes.

The best thing about Montana is that everyone has their own idea of what looks good, and the flexibility of the system affords us endless scope to explore these ideas with you.  We really did get a sense of how important it is to Montana that they continue to support us and our customers in every way they can.

You can start to explore the range for yourself using Montana’s powerful configurator tool, ‘Designed by You’. You can then email your designs directly to us from within the configurator, and we can price these up and offer advice. Or you can come and visit us in store, where we can guide you through our extensive Montana display and help you to start making room for your own personality.

SAMANTHA HORROBIN. Photos by Catherine Simmons