ÅBEN: disrupting Nordic design
From the celestial texture of a ceramic jug to the knots particular to Finnish wood, ÅBEN founder David Harrigan is vocal about his passion for Scandi design
A self-proclaimed design anorak, ÅBEN’s founder David Harrigan has an unparalleled fervour for furniture. He is endlessly affable (for a former media lawyer) and his thoughts move so fast that no topic is safe for long, as we jump from the troubles of isolation and missing pub pints to Dieter Rams and the rings of Saturn. His lifelong passion for furniture design is even evident via the Google Hangouts screen we use for our interview, as he sits in the light-filled home office of his redecorated Victorian house, with crisp white walls, a Tage pendant light and a vintage Ercol daybed in the background.
Of his childhood, David explains creativity was always at the forefront of his mind. “As a kid, all my peers had posters of rugby or cricket players adorning their walls—I had a huge poster of an Eames DCW chair and the Vitra poster with 150 thumbnails of chairs. I was obsessed with chairs.”
The Mjölk Pitcher and Silo Vase by ÅBEN-represented ceramicist Alexandra Nilasdotter.
ÅBEN, meaning ‘Open’ in Danish, is a contemporary digital platform that promotes the work of next-generation Nordic furniture and ceramic designers and acts as a platform to sell their creations. The idea originated when David and his wife, fashion photographer Billie Scheepers, were renovating their London home. “I approached a lot of furniture stores in Copenhagen, Helsinki and Stockholm, asking them if they knew the next big thing coming out of the Nordics but I kept hearing the same story; why would they devote even ten square feet in their store to a new designer when Wishbone chairs are still selling incredibly well?”
After discovering that the Oxbridge / Harvard of product design is the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation (KADK) in Copenhagen, David spent three days in the campus cafeteria quizzing students on their job prospects. “It’s going to sound creepy, considering I was a 41-year-old man approaching 18, 19, 20-year-olds, but it was fascinating.”
ÅBEN-represented “brothers in design” Frederik Gustav are reluctant to separate furniture-making, art and architecture into separate entities, intent on blurring the lines between them.
Digging deeper, David tracked down 106 young designers to speak to, discovering that they had no idea how to market themselves. His lightbulb moment came during those meetings: “Wouldn’t it be great to create an agency or collective that would take care of the website, PR, client communications and logistics so all the designer needs to do is make the piece?”
Of the 106 graduates David met, ÅBEN now represents eight designers—but what is it about someone that makes them right for ÅBEN? “I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with divas. The Sydney Swans (an Aussie rules team) operate on a ‘no dickheads’ policy and that’s something I’m very clear about. Also, every single piece we sell must serve a purpose. I love what Max Lamb does but there’s no point selling a chair if you can’t sit on it. Lastly, to on-board a designer, you need five or six pieces to start with—sometimes the designer just needs to build their collection.”
The Arcadia Chair and Last of the Free Vase by ÅBEN-represented designer Nick Ross.
When it comes to the business lessons he’s learned, David is unapologetically real. “In any given month, 29.5 days is a soulless grind, but it’s that half a day when all the planets align, or a customer says wonderful things about your business or you have a meeting with your designers and they’ve just nailed the brief—that’s what you come back for.”
The reasons why David settled on Scandi design are threefold. “Number one, they’re the best trained in the world—education is free so they all do masters and hone their craft over five years. The second reason is the quality of the raw materials. For example, our designer Antrei Hartikainen only sources his wood within a 50-mile radius of his studio—the grain of the Douglas Fir needs to be seen to be believed—every knot, every grain, every coarse edge is just so beautiful. And the third reason is that when a Nordic person says they’ll deliver something within two weeks, they’ll deliver it in two weeks. Of the 106 designers I met, not one was late.”
ÅBEN-represented designer Antrei Hartikainen and his Bastone X Poiat Cabinet.
The concept of courage is very important to David and is one of ÅBEN’S core values. “If a potential customer has the choice between buying a Wishbone or an Eames DSW chair for their dining room table, or buying one of our chairs, then more often than not, they’ll go with the classic, established choice—because they want to feel like they’re part of a tribe. Therefore, to convert a fan into a customer, we need to embolden them with courage. And if we want our customers to be courageous, we need to be courageous.”
ÅBEN is a purpose-led business that takes environmental responsibility very seriously. “Saying you’re sustainable has been misappropriated by marketing departments the world over for quite some time now, so I’m pleased to share that ÅBEN is B Corp certified [the crème de la crème of sustainability credentials]. Every piece of wood we use is FSC certified and for every product we sell, we plant a tree through One Tree Planted. Even the website server is carbon neutral—but we’re always striving to do better.”
ÅBEN-represented designer Erin Turkoglu’s Silent Teapot.