“We do need to look at something beautiful”

The furniture designers mDD Bo Strange and Morten Kjær Stovegaard – that call themselves “FurnID” – spend every day designing new and forthcoming furniture. They do not save the world, but they make a positive contribution to more beautiful and broader frames for people.

The manifesto of FurnID is based on forthcomingness. The goal of the design office can be expressed in this problem: “Can forthcomingness as a concept be translated into furniture, and can this furniture have a contagious effect on human beings?”

Propeller, 2008. Design: FurnID. Production: Raaschou Snedkeri

Some of the factors in the concept of forthcomingness are general, regardless of time and place. Being equal is an important common denominator. De-formalisation – or order without control – is another one. A third is instant affection - the immediate feeling that a furniture has something. FurnID’s furniture can express forthcomingness in various directions; the basis can be in the material, the shape or the function. The important thing is to constantly challenge the concept.

New furniture cannot save the world, but the two designers believe that we do need to look at something new now and then. And we do need to look at something beautiful. It is a small, but positive contribution to the world.

To FurnID design is about getting out what is deepest inside the stomach or the heart. You do not have a choice, because you cannot help it. Design is also about already existing products. Designers shape and construct something that is already there – and try to improve on it in an appropriate way.

The aesthetics has been essential to the choice of furniture as a design discipline. But also because furniture relates to people. When human beings are involved, you always have a situation with social aspects, behaviour and interaction.

Dekka, 2009. Design: FurnID. Production: Fredericia Furniture. Photo: Mikkel Mortensen