Food for though

Five iconic armchairs from well-known Dutch furniture brands were upholstered with a special material: ‘food for thought’, developed by Enschede Textielstad in collaboration with CSrugs and pattern designer Studio Anne Kolkman. From these chairs, visitors were able to watch the first episode of the newly launched series of short documentary portraits about the special movement Future > Factory > Furniture >.

In ‘Stof tot nadenken’ (‘food for thought’) from Enschede Textile City, Annemieke Koster showed how she and her team worked with a unique weaving machine. She explained what they did differently to achieve the best, industrial, circular (partly recycled) woven furniture fabrics with Dutch wool and shared the challenges involved. We also met Dirk van Deursen, who was National Furniture Transition Advisor and Sustainability Advisor at Royal CBM. As an expert, he outlined the broader context of the series as an introduction. The time for industry change was pressing.

Future > Factory > Furniture > is a collaboration between Royal CBM, Dutch Design Week, and the Dutch furniture and textile companies CSrugs, Gelderland, Label Van den Berg, Lande Family, Leolux, and Montis. They joined forces because the complex ecological challenges of the time called for a fundamental transformation that no manufacturer could achieve alone. “It required cooperation from the craftsmanship and ambition for innovation that we shared as companies. From our specific strengths, we wanted to collectively explore how to embed circularity more deeply in our business processes, addressing numerous issues that demanded answers.”