How It Started
In the shadow of the WeWork building in Waterloo and the novelty of a pandemic, Dean looked at his watch and announced “I’ve missed my next meeting! It started 20 minutes ago.” In the two hours before Dean and Marc were lost in an immersive deep dive into the future of interior design and how furniture should be designed and supplied. This was the first time they had met and a realisation that they were kindred spirits in the path they felt we all needed to walk to help save our industry.
Dean at the time was the Global Head Of Furniture for WeWork. As one of the first 100 employees, Dean had lived the hyper growth of WeWork, specifying at the bleeding edge of workplace interior design in the US, India, China and the UK. His experience in the furniture trends and requirements of space operators is unquestionable.
Marc was and remains the owner of a British manufacturing group, CE International and furniture brand, Roger Lewis. His experience, in the operation supply chain dynamics and manufacturing requirements of the furniture industry, is equally strong but from a very different perspective.
The journey Dean and Marc have subsequently been on over the last two years has been involved. In the following posts, we will share the distillation of their views.
How It's Going
The climate crisis is an existential threat to our way of life but our lives are so comfortable that it's difficult to care enough. And for most the subject is difficult to understand. We don’t really want to make the personal sacrifices to make a difference because the status quo is pretty cushy. The feeling is if we recycle diligently every week, putting the correct used packaging in the right bin every week then we’ve done our bit, right?
The traditional linear economic system means that we buy, consume and dispose of. Take, make, waste, as it’s called. With the best will in the world even producing using sustainable materials does not make enough of a difference to truly combat the problem. What we need to build is a system similar to that embraced by nature. A circular system where waste is reused where energy and resources can be utilised repeatedly and efficiently.
Our saviour may come too late, but it comes in the form of Generation Z (aged currently between 9 and 24 years old). This generation is embracing the circular economy and as they become the decision makers of tomorrow, businesses will have to service this audience or risk becoming irrelevant and failing.
In the world of furniture, we have seen the last 30 years become an ever increasing race to the bottom. Furniture once revered and respected, is now a throw-away commodity. This works in a linear system but in a circular world, products cannot be designed, produced, supplied or disposed of in the same way. Change is coming. Our journey at Capxule is about helping drive this change.
In the coming blog posts, we will present our ideas about the future of our industry and the future of furniture design. What is the problem with our existing way of selecting, sourcing, buying and using furniture? Is there an alternative way?
Can we create furniture that can stand the test of time? How can this furniture evolve as trends and space design changes? How do we build that can be used over and over again? Can we design the vintage of tomorrow?
With all of these questions, we don’t have all the answers but we will present our philosophy in designing a concept furniture brand of the future. A furniture system designed to transcend time. This brand is called ‘Capxule’.
Please share, comment and DM. We look forward to driving impactful change.