Making eco-sustainable furniture does not only sound natural, if you take it seriously like we do - it is very natural.

When we first decided that our way forward in furniture making had to happen without plastic and without any harmful materials, we were lucky. Why? Because we could look back on seven generations of furniture makers within our family. Our fathers and grandfathers were with us to give advice and we are forever thankful for that, because they enabled us to quickly change gears towards an eco-sustainable company and products. Our biosofa brand and products embody this philosophy from start to bottom and we are going to continue our work on finding likeminded people and partners.

Proven techniques - new materials

A lot of the techniques we use are very old and proven since decades. Other techniques and materials we are using are very modern such as our 100% natural latex foam. Using new materials that did not exist a hundred years ago enables us to do new things, new designs and to raise the quality even further. 

In this article we’re talking about the planning and prototyping of a sustainable sofa. In this case our best-selling two seater sofa Casquet.

Design collaboration

We regularly work with designers and dynamic studios that share our philosophy and are excited to be part of our mission to make 100% plastic-free furniture. If you browse our website, you’ll see names like CtrlZak, Dennis Guidone, Federico Peri or DDP Studio. When we meet, we discuss the overall approach, the problems we are trying to solve and kick a few ideas back and forth. We talk about the look and feel, the vision and will engage in discussions about comfort, the making of the new product as well as details such as lines and stitches.

We’ll work with the designers over drawings, since it’s one of the most natural and simple ways to let emotions run free and collaborate on an idea. The sketches will be rough, colourful or simply consist of lines and they set the foundation for future work on this piece of furniture.

Digital and real furniture models

Eventually we will create a 3D model of the envisioned sofa - in this case the Casquet sofa. Our product developers will start to optimize and refine the model and actually build a small scale model of the piece. This seems old fashioned, but even today it’s a must to get a better understanding of the feel, dimensions and proportions. By building a small scale model, we can also better understand how shadows drop, if details need to be worked on and we’ll gather around it, taking all sorts of perspectives to make sure the product feels right from every angle.

Precision starts on the first day

The digital model will help us to precisely calculate any specific units, textile sizes and cutting patterns for our large scale plotter. The digital sofa will also help us to get volumes, paddings and calculate prices for the various pieces that our sustainable sofa will be made of.

Once everybody involved in the development of the new sustainable sofa gives a green light, the proper production can start.

The next step is to actually build the wooden frame which you can read about in part 2 of our series.